The Road To Nowhere
by I-Write-What-I-Want-To
Summary: For more than two years Slit has survived among the scavengers beyond the canyon. Now, he must face the brethren who defected to the side of the Bag Of Nails and cope with a world which left him behind. In the end, he has no choice but to answer to the red-headed enchantress who bewitched his driver and got Nux killed as traitorous filth, Capable. A sequel to To Love Reptiles.
1. Everything will be okay

Nux was smiling, grinning like mad as he fueled up the Coupe. These are the memories that stick with you, burn themselves deep and never fade. I can never recall any one raid, they always bleed together into a pulsating mass which screams glory and horror together in my psyche. Sometimes I remember the smell of fires burning through everything that isn't steel or bone. It always seemed that the drums of war would sound just as I had finished a meal of white grit and the green sludge which cooks served along side it. I'd usually wind up chundering a gut full of food over the hand rails before the towering buttes of home faded over the horizon. Nux would always want to be at the head of the pack, the spear head cutting through the front line, and I lived for being the first to throw my thunder. A good driver brings you right to the action, throws you headlong into a wealth of glory. All envied our bravery, the prowess, the balls it requires to take on the worst of the enemy with no hope of anyone coming in time to cover your six, or scoop you up of you screw up and fail to die historically. We _lived_ for battle and it never seemed that there was enough of it. Time without battle was time spent fighting boredom, and if your half-life was running out then you were fighting your own wasting corpus too. Nux would sit up some nights, fighting just to breathe, and his coughing would sink into my dreams and show me images of his cooling corpse. I could remember all of this but in no particular order. It was all tangled and each thought punctuated by Nux grinning or cringing in agony. The reeking miasma of smoke and burning trash all around us was trying to suck me down into my own head like quick sand, I even found my legs feeling too heavy to be anything but sluggish on the pedals.

We used to do this, Nux and I. We used to paint up thick in our whites and roam the country, slinging fire, tearing down walls of steel and razor wire to pillage the treasures hidden behind. The imperators would take things which would please our deity and we took our own trophies. As if it had been yesterday, I relived a dozen separate memories of kneeling and grinding my knees into the spine of a captive enemy and the skull-splitting smile stretching Nux's face while he brandished his boot knife. He used to slice the ears from the skulls of enemy drivers he felt had been worthy opponents, and sometimes they would still be alive when he started the cutting so I would hold them still, wearing a grin of my own.

I could very clearly remember what it was like to be on the side of victory, not what it's like to be a bystander watching the devastation unfold. It's a shock, to wonder if you still had a place to camp. Did _they_ hit the cave? And who are _they_? I've never felt so small, so easy to annihilate, and somehow in spite of this, I was racing toward the most exposed territory of them all, Wilson's. The the only reason Wilson could camp where he did was the fact that everyone knew they'd be fucking themselves if they killed him. Who would do this? And why was I taking myself and the nutter to find out? Was I insane? No more insane than Dune. She was loading five into the magazine and throwing back the roof hatch to scan horizons with her scope. I wanted to grab her by the belt and drag her back down into the car. This feels wrong. I should have been the one looking with thunder in hand and her protected in the cab because that's the way it had always been with me. Nux had always been protected inside, I was always the one who was okay with being the first to eat a bullet. Life is easier that way, knowing that you will always be the first one to hurt, not the fuck-heads you give a shit about. Well, I wound up with one hand on the wheel and the other pulling on her belt to get her back down into the cab as we passed territory after territory giving off dark clouds from burning tires and the kind of barbecue you shouldn't eat. You could smell it, acrid, sharp, sometimes savory, and reek kept taking me back to the sound of war. Garbled war chants, choking smog from exhaust fumes, the sound of dying wails and the fleeing sense of self which comes with crushing life flat under boot and tire treads. I used to relish this, maybe I still would and that's the part which felt so strange. Adrenaline is a hell of a thing, and you crave it like fume and bunk-funk. Maybe that's why I was headed into the heart of Scav Country in ruin, for that hit of nitro that the little things on top of your kidneys pump out when you're scared shitless and too dumb to realize it. Once Dune was back inside, I reached up to slam the roof hatch closed. What am I doing?

"Stay inside," I demanded and she scoffed as she lifted her long-lookers to peer out through the windows. Yeah, maybe the glass wasn't bullet proof, but I wasn't having her be the first target to shoot at.

We were still too far out to see if there was smoke coming up from our patch, not that there would be any need to burn anything or cause much damage when it probably looked abandoned. The reality is, if you were a part of a group collecting valuables and burning down settlements, you would probably settle yourself at Dune's caverns if you came across it. It's sheltered, there's water, there's only one way inside. Reason was sinking in. Sure, I was a junkie for that nitro in the blood, but we had something to lose in Wilson, the basic necessity of an organic mechanic. Our flame chewed flesh needed the occasional tune-up, and the likelihood of falling out from the heat with patches of skin which won't sweat anymore is high. Not to mention all of that slime he sold the nutter to keep our gnarled up hide from drying out.

"Ducky? Slit? Shit SHIT!"

Dune's squawking in fright pulled me out of my head. The next sound to enter my good ear was the deafening shrieks of rat rod motors and cycles. We were driving parallel to a long stretch of hillside, riding down the trough between two humps of red earth and sheets of rock shed by the crumbling mountains. What we were hearing was the sound of Rock Riders, just on the other side of the hill. I know this path, it narrows to from two passages to one between the hills in a fork, and it was too late to slow down and let the Rock Riders race ahead of us. If I broke now, We'd block the dirt road right at the fork and have any number of bikes crash into us. I didn't want to experience being outnumbered by Rock Riders for any reason. Certainly, I'd rather not be responsible for their rides being destroyed and face that kind of wrath, too. Dune could only shoot so many within a minute. All that could be done was maintain speed and wait to see what damage would be done.

Four emerged from the other side of the fork ahead of us, another behind which had dropped from the crest of the next hill over and very nearly landed square on top. Their front tire left streaks down Shirley's trunk. Dune's rifle was up, she threw back the roof hatch and fired twice into the air. It was a signal, scav country etiquette that I'd learned while I lived with her. Two shots in the air when you're forced into close quarters with other fiercely territorial locals, two shots means something to the effect of being willing and able to skirmish but not actively looking for a fight. They were bellowing back and forth between themselves and whooping at us. One passenger was already preparing to light one of their signature Molotov bombs. I thought for a moment that the reply we were waiting for would come in the form of the bonnet set on fire.

It was the passenger of the bike stuck behind us which discharged a 22cal twice, presumably into the air. It was obvious now, I'd come out between the leader of the pack and his posse. They could have fucking spared us the wait for an answer, felt like an eternity with my nuts trying to climb back up inside me, just waiting for a bullet in the brain instead. There would be no getting around the wide angles of the Impala, he'd just have to stay back there until the road between the hills widened out which gave us more than enough time to have a close look at the Riders. All of the bikes had passengers, which was odd. Most Rock Riders preferred to ride light and covet complete maneuverability. One of the passengers was slumped over against the back of a driver, right arm hanging in an unnatural way and streaked with red. His torso was tied onto the driver with the sleeves of a studded coat. Another driver was nearly naked, wearing only boots, his undershorts, and a bandoleer. They were fleeing an attack they had not anticipated, hauling their wounded away. The moment their pack leader could, he pumped the guzz and sped around me.

"Learn to drive, Arsehole!" I heard him roar over the thrumming of the bike engine as he passed the driver side window. I showed him my favorite finger while Dune stood through the roof hatch to follow his head in her crosshairs until the entire group left our line of sight, turning down another forked road between another collection of hills toward the north.

It wasn't long then before Wilson's hill of dirt could be seen, the rolling black pouring out of his trap door entryway was like an unwholesome beacon. We circled and no one could be seen, I had been expecting to see _someone_. Anything. An explanation for this. Whoever had set his underground camp on fire had done it hours if not days ago, these were the dark clouds of the last embers burning out. Dune leaped from the car before it even came to a stop, it should have been predicted, and I had to lead-foot the break and run out after her. My skull meat, its gears slowed by the memory of causing madness much like this, still had enough sense not to want her near the place from which the tower of smoke was rising up. I had to clench my hands, both of them, around the collar of her vest to stop her just a few feet short of reaching the ladder leading down into Wilson's tunnels.

"Don't!" We were already coughing, choking on the noxious fumes of who knows what burning down in the old man's dirt burrow. She had to be towed back. I didn't get it. She often said that she and Wilson weren't friends, but it seemed like she had been about to dive down that hole for what would surely be smoke smothered corpse by now. "If you fall in you'll choke out and there's no way I'd get down there in time with one leg!"

Dune hacked and gagged, she'd gotten a face full of the dark clouds. We stumbled back with absolutely no grace, sliding in the loose gravel and nearly rolling down the slope of the hill on our knees.

"What if he's still in there?!" The woman bellowed at me, shoving my arms away to stand.

"There's no way, Nut-bag! If he wasn't smoked out then he's corpsed. Smoke like that _kills_ , Moron! You wanna die in there?" I was shouting back, still disbelieving that her wits had fled so quickly at the idea that Wilson could be trapped in his own bunker. Even if he was, there was nothing we could do about it. Surely she should have known that, and surely she should have known that it wasn't worth it to risk her own skin for a man of that age with a foot already in the grave.

"But," She waved her hands in the air, almost losing her footing again on the uneven ground and side stepping to catch herself. "If he's dead who's going to fix everyone?"

A shake of the head in uncertainty was all that could be given. That's a valid thought but, not something that we could fix in any way. We should leave, now.

"We need to-" She was interrupting me. She's good at that.

"Whats that? Look," She said, pointing her finger toward the other side of Wilson's dirt mound.

There were flows of paler smoke drifting away from another place. When we gathered ourselves to walk around the mound and look, I can't say I was anything but sort of amazed. Another trap door, bigger though, lightweight, made of wooden pallets tethered together and if you skirted close enough to look into the cavernous opening, you could see patterned steel ramps. He'd had a car hidden inside his underground bunker, gassed up and ready to go, the door covered and camouflaged expertly. The loose silt around the massive opening held the tire tracks. Wide tread, good for sand. The old coot had been concealing an escape plan for who knows how long. I was a little impressed, I never knew he had a set of wheels. Dune even had the wit to see what must have transpired.

"You think he got away then?" She asked, nudging at me with an elbow. I shrugged, because who knows. He might not have gotten far at all.

The crack of thunder -and I don't men from a storm- echoed across the vast nothing toward the hills. It was coming from the Moonshiner's territory in the southeast, a place we now know is controlled or possibly allied with the Citadel. The echo from a distance caused it to sound like several more explosions than it truly was, I knew this but Dune didn't seem to. She was cursing under her breath, counting in murmurs.

"Who could have that much black magic?" She asked. Any faction with enough resources to cross the mountains and do trade with the strongholds in the Great White was the answer I could have served her, but I'd rather start hauling her back to the Impala with a hand wrapped around her bicep. No time for explaining. If the Brewer's had indeed been absorbed by Citadel War Boys, then we'd surely be seeing my own old brothers spilling out mad as dogs shitting tacks any fucking minute. I didn't want Dune to see that and the thought of being recognized under these circumstances gave me the vague feeling of nausea. Dune had to be dragged, she was trying to look about with her long-lookers. The both of us had shit for hearing, and I couldn't tell if there were engines or not approaching with my own pulse drumming in my good ear.

Something deep in the radiation sick earth groaned, like the death rattle of a great beast. At first, I stopped, not knowing what the sound was, then there was crashing, an insidious crunch that rumbled the ground beneath our feet. Dune stumbled backward into me and fell right on her ass between my flesh and metal feet. Wilson's hill was caving in, the apex crumbling down into itself and letting out a massive mushroom of black smoke. The wooden struts holding up the well-excavated tunnels must have burnt up, leaving nothing to support the tonnes of dirt and rock. We had just been standing where the earth fell into the cavernous, scorched pit. Everything was fogged with the toxic clouds. The second Dune was on her feet I grabbed her around the side of the head to wrap the Nutter's face in the denim of the jacket I still wore. Best that her full-life lungs don't take in too much of the poisonous fumes. I pushed her back into the car through the open passenger side, slammed the door and got back in on the driver side. We needed to leave, now, before the car fell into a tunnel or the fiends who did this returned to the scene of their crime to admire their own handiwork.

The windows had to be rolled down as we drove, just to clear the cab of the noxious air. Dune was hacking with her head pressed to the dash, I had to reach over and push her up toward the back rest of the seat. If something happened and I had to stop short, her face would get flattened if she was leaning over like that. The brand new wheel under my hands was being painted in splatters of my own saliva too. This was a bad day. A very very bad day.

"Why? Slit? Why is this happening? We have _nothing_ out here, who would set everything on fire, Ducky? Duck?"

I shook my head. How would I fucking know? Yeah, I've seen plenty of the region by now and they really did have nothing left of great value that Joe hadn't already made us take before the Rock Riders established themselves at the Canyon. I didn't much understand it either. I felt the girl sliding closer until I could feel her heat against my left side, the scorched side. She must have been practically trying to crawl inside me if I could feel it so quickly. Her arms snaking around my middle like two lengths of rope tightening in a knot around me confirmed how close she was.

"I didn't expect to come home to this," She said to me.

I didn't either. Not at all. I expected a quiet week and a half of packing shit up, and in more complete honesty, this morning I was looking forward to spending our last week and a half alone, naked and randy any time we weren't strapping valuables to the car. That certainly wasn't going to fucking happen now. How could it? And how could I think anything good couldn't have been a harbinger of problems. Nothing good lasts long at all. All the comfort and goodness was just ash in my mouth now. I put an arm around the woman, chancing how the gears would grind if I pushed the engine too hard now as we headed home. _V8 don't fuck me again without the courtesy of lube, not now that I'm almost over the last raw one you dealt._ The drive should have taken only twenty minutes, no more than that, but it felt like I was dumping years of my waning half-life into this road home.

"You're hurting her, Ducky?" She whined against my shoulder and I rushed to release my arm and grip the gear shift instead.

No smoke to be seen from our patch yet, and we were getting close, but that meant nothing. We could find anything once we arrived. I glanced to my left to check her. She scratched at her ribs again. That was starting to worry me. Any time she slept oddly or was held too hard she'd be pushing at her chest and shifting around to sit comfortably. Nux used to do that before we knew the sickness was proliferating in him too fast to fight it. It could just as easily be a back injury, making it hurt in strange places. I certainly knew that pain. Dune had been run over once, right? Maybe it was an old wound, her old brokenness that comes back to bite sometimes. It was my nerves, I was overthinking anything my eyes spied because it might all go away very soon.

"Barrel up. Safety off." I said, making certain that she was ready for the skirmish which might greet us at her own doorstep.

She dropped her fear. It was unnerving enough to see fear on her face, an unnatural state, and worse was watching her put it away behind blank eyes and her backup firearm. It was a tiny thing, a piece kept on her ankle in a petite holster with a boot strap. It didn't have the knock-down power of the rifle, but it would be easier to maneuver inside the cab with it. If we were confronted on our own turf, a small caliber would be just as effective in close combat. My war-brain wouldn't shut up, probably not a bad thing at the moment but I could feel my pulse in my throat thanks to it. Didn't this use to be a thrill? Yeah, but it's all turned around now.

The foot of the mountains was closing in around us as we neared the destination, massive roots of rock which kept her camp so well concealed. The feel of the car as shallow dunes of sand parted under the tires was falsely reassuring. On a base level, my skull-meat wanted to be relaxed at the sight of the cave mouth and the sands blown against the walls of irregular cliffs and ledges. My good eye spotted something I'd been worried I might see, so my foot flattened the break. Dune had to throw out a hand to catch herself before she bounced off the dash. I hissed. I had to be more careful about that, or install shoulder belts...

"Ugh, are you TRYING to give a Scav a busted head?!"

"Look," I pointed ahead through the windscreen. There were deep tracks in the sand, something heavy on wheels. The cave mouth was only ten yards ahead. Someone was inside _our_ cave.

I popped my door open to step out, the Colt in hand and ready. "Stay here," I commanded, but she was already opening her door too. It became the most purposefully quiet pissing contest I've ever had.

"Don't give Dune that 'stay here' tripe! I'm a better shot than you off my face and asleep! I'm going!"

"I don't want you hurt, Asshole!"

" _Everything_ hurts, Slit."

"V8, fucking... Just stay behind me, then."

"No."

"Fine, whatever." There was really no stopping her, she had a point about her aim even if I was happy to ignore it, but I've seen where she comes from and it would be an exercise in futility to keep asking her to let me be a meat shield. Her small piece was put away in a stumble as she leaned down to shove it back into the holster on her boot before sliding her way out of the strap of her Enfield. She was ready, I was ready. We had the firepower, although that's no guarantee of survival, it gave us the best crack at it.

Much like the road here, the walk felt like it took eons of time I did not have to spare to this shit-box world. The moment the shade of the stone enveloped us, Dune was shoving her tinted goggles up onto her forehead so that she could see. This was our disadvantage. We could not see in the darkness after a day in the sun. I heard nothing, it was safe to assume that she could hear no stirring ahead of us either. When my eyes would let me see, what was sitting there, parked crooked in the middle of the garage chamber surprised me. I wasn't even sure of what it was. The angry scav was at my side, hissing and raising her rifle to hold against her shoulder.

"Is that a VW-mother-shitting-fuck-BUS parked in my house?" Dune knew what it was apparently. I'd never come across one before.

"I guess?" I answered, not at all sure.

It was a windowed van. Each side window boarded up with table legs, dry rotted plants and rusted wafers of scrap steel. It was pretty poorly fortified otherwise, the only praise the thing deserved was that it was smart of whoever prepped it to make it impossible to open any door but one. Too may ways to crack open a steel box is dangerous. It still had its original paint, which must have sat under the burning eye for so long that a much brighter color and glossy finish turned to rust speckled piss yellow. Dune was ready to circle toward the side doors, nudging against me with a shoulder to get me moving. She was prepared to shoot whatever could be lurking inside the strange vehicle or deeper in the cavern. Her eyes were firmly fixed upon the only door which wasn't welded shut for good, mine had drifted elsewhere, to the tires specifically.

"Wait, wait," I had to bump her arm with my knuckles and point to direct her attention. Hard thing to do when a sniper already has its beady eyes on where they'll have to train their aim. "Tire treads match whatever came up that ramp at Wilson's."

"Does that mean-"

The van's double-doors flew open and slammed against the panels of boarded windows around them without any kind of warning and the question Dune was surely about to ask was answered in a shout. Dune took aim but her finger did not clench around the trigger.

"Here I am fuckers, get it over with! I'm too old for waitin' around!" he bellowed. It was Wilson, alright. The barrel of his familiar Winchester faintly gleaming in the low light within the expansive interior of his ride as he sat up against the opposite door.

His brows rose high as he looked upon us, scrunching the deep wrinkles of his forehead until it looked like a topographical map of the surrounding region. He lowered his firearm and wheezed out a sigh of words.

"You're alive, good. You little shits almost gave me a heart attack... and messed drawers," he said, face settling into a slightly less age crumpled texture.

There were a few questions to be had but, initially, no will to voice them out loud. Wilson's fat knuckled fingers shook around a rolled scrap of earth stained paper, causing it to bob about against the flame of a lit match as he fired up for a toke. Might make those shakes worse if he was the type to get paranoid on the stuff. I've never seen him smoke and only seldom enjoyed the occasion of it myself within my half-life. I took this time to return to the Impala and pull in along side the van. Dune was half standing and half sitting against a bulge in the stony wall, scratching at her face and raking her nails against the curling overgrowth on the sides of her head. A passing thought appeared, she needed a trim too, but the thought cut off when Wilson began to talk.

"Any injuries? Bleeds or knocks?" he asked

Dune shook her head with a grunt. No, we were untouched by whoever had decided to raze everything around here to the ground. We'd cut right through the territories to Wilson's and then home like a rat fleeing through a crowd, more or less unnoticed. The Rock Riders we'd encountered also had better things to do rather than gain more wounded with another skirmish, even if they would have had our asses by sheer numbers. The old man didn't look so lucky, his head was swollen around his right eye socket and the shade of purple running under this thin old hide was a clear indication that his escape was narrow and not without exchanged blows. I was no organic mechanic, but I know enough to keep an eye on for those telling symptoms of a concussion. At least, if Wilson had gotten into a fist-cuff with whoever ransacked his bunker, he'd probably know what faction they were from.

"Who was it?" a simple and direct question.

"Storm Chasers," Wilson answered with a spit, wiping a thread of slime from his lower lip a moment later.

The Nutter and I exchanged a glace. She looked perplexed, and she'd once told me that these men, for the most part, preferred to keep to their own and only emerge from wherever they camped during rust weather. Dune could be wrong, she didn't know everything and as a hermit, she definitely wasn't an expert on the way these local groups did their wars and trade. The only time Dune ever seemed to be social was the biannual gathering which crowded around the foot of Wilson's hill, much to his great annoyance, where locals would trade and then disperse in the hours of a single morning. They called it Market Day. Dune took me to such an event once, for car parts, then we left several hours before the others vacated. I could guess why. She had dropped me off at the cavern then went back out with pockets full of ammunition, coming back several hours later with a corpse and a new ammo box. Dune wasn't a trader, she was a sniper. If she wanted something, she sat up in one of her usual spots and waited for what she wanted to pass her by, then shot the owner on his way home. The only trading she ever did was to conceal her intentions, get close and assess what her target had, and she chose her victims carefully as not to incur vengeance upon her. Other hermits were a favorite. Her skill in this area could only go so far right now. A sniper is only as useful as the distance between it and the target. These Storm Chasers were attacking on multiple fronts, probably using the strength of numbers, into territories and eliminating that distance.

"Why the hell would _they_ have a sudden hard-on for the rest of this shit-hole?" Dune sneered, still disbelieving from the looks of it. "They never do _anything_."

Wilson waved a finger, hacking up billows of the foul-smelling smoke, to beckon attention while calling for a pause.

"Heard a week or two back that their battle captain bought the farm,"-he wheezed another cough and waved for another pause before going on-"Some new asshole named Ripzag took up the mantle, probably thinks he needs to have a go at everyone else to prove he's got the cajones for the job."

Dune snorted and began to twist at her hair with her left fingers. My turn to ask the questions. Now that my head was fed enough explanation to know the bare minimum of what was going on, I had the room upstairs to be irritated with it all. Every turf around us was on fire, the old coot was here on ours, and the timing of everything stinks. I had really, _really_ been wanting that time spent with only Dune, because there would be precisely no time alone at the Citadel. That's just how life worked there. It's crowded, every surface always smelled like a dozen bodies have been sweating into it for hours, and no one has any concept of personal space, which was something I'd grown to enjoy around here. The matter of naked games being a thing for me and the lunatic now compounded my irritation further, can't picture doing that within earshot of the geezer.

"Why here? There's gotta be dozen other camps that would jump at having the only meat mechanic for twenty miles all to themselves." my tone was acid, I didn't care. I should have been grateful by the same reasoning but I couldn't bother to curb my rusted mood.

With the spit-wet joint pinched between his toothless upper gums and the few bottom teeth he had left, the old man made a lewd pumping motion with a fist at his crotch, finishing of the gesture with a flourish of the hands. Just a vulgar way of saying 'because, fuck you, that's why'.

"An I know ya shits are lyin'. You both look like dog shit. I wanna check over the both of ya animals." he crowed as he got up on his crackling legs and eased himself out of the van with a leather bag under his arm.

I looked to Dune, the swelling under her eye from where she caught my elbow and the friction rash on her arms from all the grappling in the dirt the day before was probably what got Wilson so worked up. I looked at myself, similar scuffs and bruised welts, a broken finger too. Easy to see how he could make the mistake of thinking we'd had a close encounter of the bloody kind as well. The Scavenger left her place against the wall with a curt hiss between her teeth and showed off those sharp parts as she slipped passed the organic mechanic, just to let him know the answer was a definite no. She did not seem to enjoy his medical intervention much, even if she praised it when he wasn't around. I shook my head at him, so he tossed his bag back unto the floorboards of the van through the open double doors and grumbled, 'Brats' I think he said as he rummaged about inside the vehicle.

"Hey," I heard him call, and had to move quickly to catch what he'd thrown at me. A can. One of those rations he always had stacked up all over his underground rust-pit.

We all wound up seated in a circle next to the van after a short time, watching Wilson digging around in a moldy cardboard box as he cut open cans and passed them around. I suspect he was just being smart and luring us close with food so he could look at our busted pieces.

"Don't eat anything that looks like cake. Or smells weird," he warned.

They were worthless words. All of it smelled and tasted weird to me. It's before-time grub in a neat package, none of it tasted right and the last time I ate it when Wilson sent the shit home with us after Dune was lightning struck, half of it gave me the wicked runs. Wilson began to taste test after my complaint, handing out what seemed for the most part good enough to eat. It was weird shit, some pieces chalky, others slimy, all of it retaining a kind of metallic taste from the cans or plastic it sat in for twenty years or more. Dune fetched some cola, made a big fuss over not being able to diligently collect the flows for more than a month, and we also ate up the rest of what Ard's group sent back with us. All the dried stuff was boiled soft for Wilson's benefit. I swear that she had threatened to knock the rest of his teeth out at some point over the past thirty or forty days, what happened to that fury?

Wilson somehow convinced Dune to wear a cold wet rag under her eye for the swelling, and next to a weak fire between the van and the Impala we told Wilson where we planned to go and he told us all news he'd heard since he last saw us. It had been a few months, so he had plenty to say of what injuries other locals had come to him with and how the conflict in the area had been building for some time between different groups until there was a small skirmish in the west near the mouth of the canyon. He thinks that's the battle which got the Storm Chaser's old battle captain cut down. He thought he'd like to go with us, said he didn't have much left to stay for. The old man and the sniper chattering on about the Storm Chasers was illuminating. I'd never heard much about them because like Dune said, they don't typically do much anyway. She only ever saw them when they crawled out of their camps to drive directly into storms like the fatally insane. Wilson said they were cannibals, which wasn't so big a crime, but the near obligate cannibal lifestyle was a worrisome thing. Wilson said the only reason he sees them in his territory was for what he called 'nutritional deficiencies' which, according to him, was no easy thing to remedy in a place where green refuses to grow. Dune, she was a known cannibal. While I never partook, once or twice, I'd seen her cook up parts of her victims before resigning their ultimate fate to the maggot farm. She was just trying to survive, Wilson made it sound as if these Storm fuckers thought they could absorb a man's power by eating him. It certainly put a new spin on what few words I had heard about them in my time around the loon.

"How long till you're supposed to meet the others?" Wilson asked after the previous talks had fallen into an idle silence.

"Week and a half," Dune told him, lips muffled around the back of her middle knuckle. Reflex, had to reach over and stop her from chewing her right hand open. Fuck, she did that all the time now. Didn't do that before the lightning. Or maybe she did and my stupid ass never noticed.

"We came back to pack up anything worth trading." I supplied, finishing her answer.

The man nodded, scratching through the gray shoe brush on his chin. "I was out like a light when you kids turned up. Thought you vacated when I first got here. I tell ya, I was pretty sore about that. Wondered if one of ya kicked the bucket an' the other took off... Been keepin' watch for the last two days. I was the first one they decided to mow down. Didn't act too apt to knock me off but it seemed like they wanted to make damn sure there was nothing left there to salvage. Bagged what they could. Lit up the rest. Mmm, just the three of us 'round this fire know the exact dot on the map where this _here_ spot sits. I figure, so long as we keep an eye on, might be able to wait out the week an' see if the joint cools down. Maybe the sand breathers won't bother over here. Not like there's much to be seen from the outside to bait um in. You've been good about keeping a low profile, kiddo. Yir mom would be proud."

Dunes eyes flickered up from the fire as she peered at the old man. I won't try to imagine whatever she was thinking, the look on her face said enough of her confused head. She stared off into space toward the passage out of the caverns as she pulled her hand away from mine. Her lips were moving as if she were speaking, but she made no sound at first.

"With three people we can keep a look out. Eight-hour watches, take turns, sleep and pack between shifts." she declared, finally. It made sense so we all agreed.

Wilson plucked out some loose threads from his sleeve and we drew straws with them. Dune was to take watch first, next Wilson, then me. There was only one place you could have a good vantage point from high ground while keeping an eye on the pathway toward the cave mouth. You had to climb up the crevices and through a few of the natural, though narrow, passages toward where Dune kept the maggot farm, far from where she had to smell it and where the flies outside would. You crawl out through the spot where the stone had fallen away in crumbles over V8 knows how many years and you could sit out on a shelf of rock. This world is so screwed, seemed like even the mountains and land marks were slowly dying. Wilson supplied a folding chair to use out there while we took our turns. I was pretty relieved that I didn't have to drag that thing through the squeezes. Getting myself and the damn leg to the maggot farm was pain enough when it was my turn to clean the stink-hole. We debated whether to try barricading the entrance or not. Filling the passage with crap wasn't something I wanted to spend the effort on, it would also make it a bitch to get out if we had to bolt. The easiest thing to do was pull the van up against the way out as tight as we could get it. At least that provided an obstacle, a two-second advantage. Once it was parked with the working door facing inward and open so that Wilson could sit half inside it, Dune began to wordlessly wander toward the climbs and crude ladders leading toward the maggot farm.

"Wait," I called, "What should I be loading in the car?"

She shrugged, eyes looking wrong and posture slumped as she said: "Gonna be tradin' shit to Citadel folk. Yeah? No? War Boys. You were- or are a War Boy. You'd know what they want. Figure it out."

"Thanks for being specific," I muttered.

"What?" The scav snapped.

"Nothing," and that was the end of the discussion.

We were on edge, couldn't be helped. I watched her go, taking her rifle and long-lookers along with her. I had nothing to do but pick a pile of junk and start digging. One look around this place and it's easy to see that it's nothing but a fucktangle of miscellaneous shit, some of it garbage you could re-purpose which would be why Dune and presumably her mother kept it and dragged it to this homestead. Things you don't have to dump hours of effort into were intermingled in the piles and collections of crap. Even this shallow cave chamber had the appearance of a crows nest, just stuff that a neurotic bird picked up and took home just because it caught her eye. There were tools, which were useful things, and I'd pack some for my own uses if the Impala needed repairs somewhere along the journey. Couldn't take them all, though, because it wouldn't be worth the extra weight. Boys back home were well stocked in that area, anyway. It did not take long to find a bag with no holes in it, it was a heavy canvas, and throw in what I thought I'd like to have in case we broke down. There were already wrenches and what-have-yous scattered about in the trunk and on the floorboards from the trip to the Green Place. Those were sorted into the bag proper. This killed all of twenty minutes. Wilson eventually worked up the nerve to sidle up to one of the piles.

"Mind if I-" he started, only to be interrupted.

"I don't give a shit, she probably doesn't either," I snorted while he began poking though and turning items over to inspect them.

I could potentially locate most of the ammunition Dune had hidden throughout the cave, set that aside somewhere to let her sort it, but there was a strong urge to be unhelpful after being snapped at. She had suggested that I find something to please my own kind anyway as if she had anything that would. Living out here fast made me realize that, yes, while we were raised to die for a man who was probably lying, we were also spoilt for parts and materials for tinkering in mechanics. Sure, they'd appreciate the metals but that was another issue of weight. Weight means guzzling more fuel, so we couldn't be hauling tonnes of scrap metal across Scav Country, The Mountains, The Dunes, The Dead Barrens. Couldn't do it. Dune probably had a better idea of what actually had value. It felt like it would be much easier to do this together. _Together_. That word left an unsettling sensation deep in my guts as it passed through my head meat.

That morning had been great, epic even. I had woken up to the heat of her body sprawled over mine, dead set on getting her out of her threads again if I could, and had been deeply gratified every time I had my hands on her. I finally got what Crank was droning on about with all of his sickly soft talk about his harpy. I liked it, trading paint out of hiding and with somebody I actually _knew_ , not a nameless, faceless stranger. Sure, it brought the same anticipatory rush of terror and awe as moments when you think you might have to spray a slick of chrome on your teeth, but it was worth it. I won't lie, I wanted more of that feeling and to be rightly attached to the imp of I could get away with it, but everything got bent out of shape as soon as she had those crazy eyeballs of hers in the long lookers to see what was happening here in the west. This day had gone from the highest high, as if I'd been up all night huffing paint, down to the lowest pit, a come-down to smash all others. This was supposed to be a week and a half to ourselves, to get shit done and laze the rest away doing whatever the hell we wanted to, _together_. That word still left a new and weird taste in my mouth.

We were home, but I was righteously anxious, irritated, and, inexplicably, unbearably fucking horny. That wasn't new to me. As I've said before, back at the Citadel one fights boredom on a near daily basis and each of the listed states of mind is a common symptom of _the bored._ This was different, it was an aggravated boredom because no matter how much I sifted and dug around in the detritus of Dune's life as a scavenger thief, the pile of junk to take with us stayed small. Assorted gun parts, a couple moldy word burgers -Joe seemed to think they were important and had all stacks of paper with words scrawled on them collected by his imperators into some sort of repository- and any jugs which still had their caps. I could fill a bunch of them up, get started on bottling the water we'd told the others we could bring to help keep every mouth wet. It was another way to piss away the time without wasting it, so I fed a length of frayed nylon rope through any jugs with handles and tied it off in a loop to throw over my shoulder as I went down into the deeper reaches with an oil torch. There were only a few spots where the walls got damp, in that chamber I called my garage where the caved in roof let outside air and sunlight in to evaporate the dampness before it could even slither its way to the ground, then in the interior where we slept, there was one spot where it would drip at a fair pace, fast enough to fill a five-gallon bucket in maybe forty-eight hours? It's what made Dune's territory worth keeping secret.

Our things were exactly where we left them before departing for her birthplace almost two months ago. Everything but her corpse of a mother, I couldn't see this fact because no lamp was lit in that corner to light the place up, but we took her with us and buried her next to the place she'd raised Dune.

In caves, for whatever reason, you don't get much dust. I expected to find a film of it coating everything, but there wasn't. The buckets and basins she used to catch the steady drops was once a mere large wash bucket or two. I had improved that after several months of living here, set up a system where containers and buckets were stacked like a slightly tilted staircase of five, that way when the top bucket fills it will drip its overflow into the one under it and so on and so forth. Usually, we only managed to let two fill before Dune decided to use it for scrubbing out duds and us too. All five pans and buckets were filled to the brim -probably by the time we'd been gone a week- and had since overflowed. Thankfully the slow stream of wetness had run away from the bedding, though it appeared to be pooling under a yet another assemblage of Dune's scrap and rubbish. You could smell something faintly metallic and see the rust beginning to show on things near the bottom. It always had a smell if it got wet over here. No matter, I ignored the pool under the pile and focused on the task I had assigned myself to. I poured out the first few inches of water, gave it a swish and swallow to test that it wasn't stagnant, then set myself to work dunking the opened jugs in and letting them fill up before replacing the caps. We could put the water in Wilson's van. If he wanted to tag along he was driving his own damn rig. If I couldn't get privacy at home with the nutter, then I'd have to settle for having it in the car on the trip at night. Fuck, it wasn't as if I was unaccustomed to that sleeping arrangement after so damn long with the Crow Fishers. The thought reminded me of the night before in the car, for some reason that only antagonized my irritability.

Getting rough on the hand-break is known to bluntly knock the edge off of _bored_ and _anxious_ , but taking advantage of the fact that I was alone down here achieved nothing but leaving me feeling disgusting and tired. Time crawled like a dried out wretch. The "take pile" as it would come to be called didn't grow much. Wilson took the aqua-cola I brought back up to store it in the van. Inside his ride, I could see that he'd brought some measure of his trade with him, medical supplies. Honestly, that was what probably had the most value around here, Wilson's stuff and the fact that he knew how to use it. I brought Dune one of the newly filled jugs of cola around the middle of her shift. At some point, I had to accept the fact that I had spent a little less than seven hours accomplishing fuck-all. I tried sleeping so that my coming shift wouldn't be spent fighting my own eyes trying to droop closed. I didn't find resting any easier than gathering goods.

Time passed slowly, but it _did_ pass. Not long after I told Wilson we should bed down near the cars and l put myself down for a few hours of shuteye, could hear Dune on her way down from the surface. Her boots clumping and her right toe catching on the rock slightly as she moved, she was clearly tired what with her right leg listing. The fact that she was coming down meant that Wilson was now on watch and he'd be out there with eyes open for eight hours. Dune stumbled to the mats, almost stepped on me, then sat and began untying her boots.

"Awake already, Fucker?" Casual greeting, just like always. Everything was different but nothing had changed. I had no idea that I could miss somebody I had last seen only eight hours prior.

" _Still_ awake." I had not actually slept.

I'd been laying there, unable to keep my damn eyes closed, thinking about what could be done if any of us actually saw something on our watch. I supposed we could throw ourselves into the nearest vehicle and haul ass. Where to, though? That was the looming uncertainty. Wilson's was fucked, that's where everyone around this dust bowl _used_ to go to regroup after a disaster to figure out what the hell to do. There was no neutral territory now, and to hear Wilson tell it, that had been the intention the hostiles.

"Dreams or nerves?" she asked.

"Take your pick. They're interchangeable parts." I answered, to which she sighed.

"Ya need sleep, gotta have those pretty peepers open when it's your turn to be lookin' out. Dune'll get ya down for a few winks."

And that shrill voice in the back of my head which had first woken in the morning after our night by The Lookout smacked its dry lips at her offer. "The fun way or..."

I was jabbed by cold fingers hard in the tender spot under the arm pit for that. "The usual way, _Arse_ ,"

 _If only the fun way was the usual way. It could have been if I wasn't such a rust bucket that Dune thought she had to treat like a milk sucker for two years._ There's the good ol' voice I was used to. A marriage of my own shitty inner monologue and every voice I had to listen to declaring me too mediocre to be useful when I was hip high. Dune hadn't exactly meant to do what she did, though, and had the balls to admit she was wrong about it. I'll own the fact that I gave her a few reasons to treat me like that too, though I confess that I had no fucking clue it was happening because I'd never encountered it before. I don't know that War Pups are even treated like infants when they _are_. Tried not to think too hard on all of this while she stripped herself down to a hole-riddled sleeveless shirt and pants rendered loose on her without a belt, I found mixed success.

"Shouldn't take all that off. Gonna run to the car with your pants hanging around your knees when storm chasers swarm us?"

She grabbed her boots, vest, and belts and stood with her effects under one arm while the other hand was busy holding her waistband up. She limped over to the car and chucked it all through the open passenger window. Her posture said 'irritated'.

"There," she huffed. "Dune'll put it on in the car if they come."

She was tired _and_ moody. Moody ahead of schedule. Well, that fun shit we did a night ago definitely wasn't happening. Now it was just a count down to finding her pissed off and curled up somewhere dark like a snake with a fangy mouth full of venom. I've been stupid enough to reach into that den and mess around with the snake before, I wasn't about to try and undress it. I should have been thankful. If she had the chance to get through her monthly week of 'Fuck off, War Cuck' ahead of schedule then I wouldn't have to be trapped in a car on a long trip with that later. My idiotic, shrill little inner voice was incensed at the timing of this routine event happening well out of routine. That dumb voice in charge of my lower half seriously thought it was a tragedy. It was like it didn't care that I had just been spared the trauma, Dune had been spared too, we had all been spared the agony of dealing with this in a hot car. But the moron in me had the ego and the evident self-centeredness to be annoyed that there would be no chance until a few days before we left. Even then, when you really think about it, fun of any sort should be the last thing on your mind when the entire region you live in is being pillaged. Maybe I was too familiar with chaos to be rightfully wary of it. I would be told in later years that I had been conditioned to be desensitized. War and bloodshed is hardtack and cola to anything raised up within the tunnels of the Citadel's War Tower. Dune, none too gently, shoved my head and shoulders forward to seat herself under me and dropped my head onto the meat of her left thigh.

"The hell are you scowlin' about?" she muttered before dragging her fingers over my face.

Even if her shine hand didn't feel so shine as usual with her sour mood, it still pushed my own rubbish mood right out of me. With time, her shine hand quit being all scraping nails and the pull of sweat sticky fingers against stubble. She got soft again, and her fingers slowed to lazy half circles prodding their way around my head.

"Slit, I'm scared," and after her words, I could feel her shudder.

I knew why, yet still, I asked. And when I said that simple word "Why?" she looked down at me and she almost seemed sane. She hurt all over, she told me this. I suspected that it could have something to do with the hurt she always had for a week out of every month but to look at her it seemed to be more than just that.

"How are we supposed to get them all across Scav Country now, Ducky? How?" She whimpered as she curled over unto her side next to me. It was a good question. Crank knew the risks, knew what could happen, it was his job to prepare them all for it, not me, certainly not Dune. It wasn't her responsibility to be accountable for what might happen. It never was. I took her to the Green Place, which ended in this ludicrous promise of a journey to the place I came from. This was never her burden. It was mine, and my job to prepare her for it.

"You should be." it was a clumsy admission which had her looking at me with fear in her eyes. Fear is good, it's normal, its' guzz for the war to come. I still hated seeing her afraid. "If everybody got there in one piece, even if Scav Country wasn't burning, I'd call it a bloody miracle."

"So... You're saying you don't think everyone is going to make it."

I had never seen it before, evidence in her flesh that she was truly from some idyllic paradise. Did she really think it was possible for everyone to survive this? She was always an optimist to a maddening degree. Her Green Place could be why.

"I'm saying, I _know_ we won't all make it."

"Slit-"

"Hey, shoot first, ask questions later. Remember that. No one is safe, and no one can be trusted. That's how you survive. Don't ask. Just shoot." I said it because she was good at that, maybe it was something she could understand.

She only seemed to ball up tighter, folding over on herself like a jack knife. I pulled myself up the length of the mats and her down them so that we were truly next to each other. I tried to look at her face, but she curled up more. All I had to look at was the top of her head.

"Dune," I didn't know what to say from there. I used to not care. I used to be able to say anything and not give a damn how words could cut through people. It's still better than mincing the truth. I think I had ruined her chances at sleep too.

"I don't want it to end up like it did the last time." she murmured flatly.

I didn't get it, not until she flexed her right hand of scars. It then occurred to me that the last caravan she was with was met disaster, and then she was shackled before being mutilated. I needed to move, to do something, anything but dive into _that_ story with her. It's one thing hearing an old man tell it, seeing her face while she recalled it would be something else entirely. Something which might convince me to blow off Crank and let them make the journey on their own.

"We reek. Let's wash." I said. I know she uses this tactic on me, and I know it works. She needed to be distracted.

She produced the most pitiable bleating noise when I pulled her up by the wrist. We hadn't really done much washing since before we left her green place and forgot about it by the time we arrived here, far too preoccupied with the idea of being invaded and murdered by storm worshiping cannibals to be bothered with concepts like personal hygiene. Often, she was the one who demanded that we must bathe, that the smell of our funk was making her want to retch. I know she didn't expect me to steer her toward the interior, where we had always slept, ate, bathed, and know she didn't expect me to care, because I certainly didn't expect to either.

This place had its comforts in familiarity, our combined stink which had saturated into the very stone, what could feel like countless nights spent listening to each other snore though the night if not for the marks she left on the walls to count days. That's the first thing she did, forgetting that we were there to wash. We wouldn't even be here long, we might not ever come back, but she appeared compelled to scratch her marks in the wall. The days kept crawling closer to three years as she scratched. I watched her diligently count, sometimes stopping to remember and do the math. I don't know how she always managed to keep track.

I wasn't sure if she was finished, she was just standing there, swaying on her feet and searching her wall of time with half closed eyes. I took the worn stone from her hand, and she took this as her cue to seat herself to disrobe completely. We both did. I think she was surprised when I touched her with cool, wet cloth. She looked at me as if she was startled, but leaned closer and ducked her head for me to drag the damp rag over her mess of hair. She usually kept it rather short on the sides, it hadn't been cut in months and allowed to form springy curls where her worrying fingers hadn't twisted and tangled them to locked pleats. If you pulled on them, they would bounce back.

It was a lazy moment, scrubbing away the layers of filth after days spent sweating ourselves soaked in a black car which absorbed heat even on a cold morning. She leaned heavily, damp face pressed somewhere between my collar bone and where my bloodpump pulsed while she reached around my side with her rag, sluggardly, to wipe the dust and grime out of the scars I find it hard to reach. We scarcely bothered to pull on reasonably clean grundies before further lazing about on old sleep mats and the piles of rubbish serving as bunks. All I wanted, in that particular moment, was for her to sleep deeply and forget everything for just a short time. Long-term wants are different, complicated, far away. I wanted a guarantee that she wouldn't be alone in this damn cavern when I inevitably carked it before her. That's the upper limit of what I could want beyond base, fleshy needs. I just didn't want her alone in here for the rest of her full-life. That's too long. Covered by a thin sheet of wear soft canvas, she sang softly next to my good ear. I tried to truly hear the words, make sense of them, but they inherently made no sense at all despite the pleasing nature of the tune.

"What's Africa?" I asked, and she laughed out a simple response 'dunno'. "What's rain?" I tried another word I'd never heard.

She seemed to shift herself to get closer, pulling the cord linking our hands as she moved. "It's water, Ducky. Water that falls. Dune suspects it feels something like... Err. When we're close. When it feels like you're all over. Maybe. Dunno."

I fell asleep trying to undo her ever more senseless words and rearrange them to work in my head. I never solved that puzzle, but I slept soundly, dreamt of the smell of her freshly washed skin.

The frustration of my lower half was forgotten when I woke. The scavenger, Dune, was trying to get up. This was the first instance in a long while that her sleeping body got up with real intention to dream walk. She was trying to stand and my dead weight caused her to lose her footing, falling in a twisting motion to land hard on her hip. The yanking on my arm and her disoriented jabbering were what woke me. Her blood shot eyes told me what had happened, what was _still_ happening to her. She looked disturbed by whatever she was still dreaming as I took off my half of the cord and grasped her around the waist to haul her over my lying corpus. I settled her between me and the wall, and she kept trying to turn over in my arms or crane her head up to look at something. Her legs wroth too, like she thought she was walking. It takes time to get her to either wake or fall back into deeper sleep. She had to be held tightly, told she was dreaming. In a short period of months, I had become good at this. If her dream was persisting, I had to lean heavier on her, hook my calf around her knees, repeat myself into her ear and against her jaw that she needed to wake up. If there were tears and whimpering too, I had no choice but to park my pride and get soft. By that time it was getting easier to do that too, telling her that she was alright, that I was there. I wondered if I should have been doing that for Nux. He never walked in his sleep or did anything like that, but sometimes he'd wake up tense, clutching a blade or my blender wrenches in his fist. There are a hundred reasons for any War Boy to do that, but I could have done more than simply roll over and go on sleeping. I thought sleeping back to back would be enough, eyes looking both ways, that sort of thing. He probably needed more than that, I might have needed more too. I've always had shit dreams.

This was a bad one. Sometimes she'd say things that made me wonder just what she was dreaming. She's called out names before, called for her mother, shrieked when touched, or alternatively grasped tightly at whatever touches her. One time she sat up despite my grip on her climbed into my lap. That was before the not-so-green place, and it was so freakish that I had shoved her off me. Funny how that wouldn't bother me anymore. This time, she was just being stubborn, whatever images gripped her brain weren't letting her go easily. Minutes passed and her arms had to be folded over her chest and squeezed between us while I held her. She had been trying to claw her way free. Waking her too suddenly can be dangerous, could get a fist in the mouth or her teeth savaging that big bleeder in the neck, which was where her face happened to end up near as she struggled. There was something inherently unpleasant about having to do this while the both of us were nearly naked and when she stated crying to be let go, that only made it worse. That made half digested MRE gruel rise up my throat. My skull meat immediately replayed the scene where I had found Wrecker looming insidiously over Nux.

"Dune, _wake up_. I'm _not_ trying to- Nut-bag? Please."

Her pleading and ragged breaths quieted with another few rounds of insisting that she had to pull herself out of the dream. She moaned, clicked her teeth together and twisted her fists between us. When I pulled back to see that she truly was awake, the fact that she was looking right at me confirmed it. She sat up the instant I let go and examined her wrists. She clasped her scarred hand around the left and rotated the joint.

"What.. Uh.. Was it." This was the first time I had ever bothered to ask what she was dreaming after she had a fit like that. So she looked at where I lay with some confusion, maybe distrust.

"The dream?"

I nodded, and she shook her head as if refusing to speak although she did anyway, managing somehow to explain in a single word. "Shackles."

An old memory replaying in her head. Well, it wasn't what I worried she might have been dreaming, but it was a harsh reminder that she could easily have been the plaything of a man far more dangerous than Wrecker. Wrecker was offed by a pup a little under four thousand days who was stupidly lucky, Scrotus was killing his adult sparring instructors and Imperators on violent whims by that same age. I used to admire the mad man for his near god-like prowess in battle, to a point I still do, but imagining Dune at his whim was nothing less than a waking nightmare. Dune must have realized what kind of hell she narrowly escaped, but that doesn't nullify the kind of wretchedness whose story was told in her very scars.

I sat forward then, not really certain of what I was going to do about the way she was pulling her knees in and turning her left wrist over under her numbed gaze. She had no scars there, so I assumed that she hadn't fought the slaver's restraints too harshly years ago but maybe she could still feel them on her, the same way I sometimes still felt Wreckers blade jammed into my mouth.

My right hand hovered, lifted and nearly dropped twice when I hesitated. It was still bizarre to see and more over, touch her bare body in any way that wasn't a necessity. Couldn't touch her right, not with the thought of Wrecker's perversion still lingering in the back of my head. Her right knee seemed like a place which doesn't insinuate anything, I couldn't help feeling like I was supposed to be doing something. My nutter grasped my hand quickly, too quick for me not to assume that she meant to remove it, I pulled away only to have my fingers gripped more strongly.

"I like your hands," she said. I couldn't possibly know why and she obviously could read that on my face, so she explained it to me. "They're sturdy. Big. Kinda sweaty, though."

I shrugged at the sweat comment. Yeah, I sweat in my sleep, so what? She did too. She compared her left to mine as if she had to show me what I already knew. Dune's shine hand was smaller than mine. She was only half a head shorter than I was so my hand wasn't much longer than hers, but her bones certainly seemed thinner. When I really looked I found it hard to believe she could throw a punch without snapping those skinny little hand bones. It was a distraction we both needed. We rose and dressed shortly after she dropped my hand. I found Wilson sleeping on the job, couldn't bitch much, he'd been up there longer than the eight-hour shift.


	2. Irritability

-Dune-

It had only been two days since we came back to this place, the caverns. Two days and two nights spent in shifts to watch the path toward the mouth of our hiding place. The former War Boy and I found a rhythm on day one, he slept at the end of his time not on watch and I slept at the beginning of mine, that way we at least ended up on the mats together for the usual rituals, that thankfully hadn't been lost in this time of suspicion and violence in Scav Country. Wilson relieved me of my duty, and down I went to search out a far more ornery man. He'd been all tense and huffy, which could be understandable given the events which had transpired while we were away. What a nightmare to come home to.

My poor Ducky. He hadn't even bothered to take off his leg or his bracer and single finger-less driving glove. I was tired too, I could have left him like that but I could not help but to gently remove the unnecessary bits from his sleeping form. The steel and supplies strapped to Shirley's roof said it all, the things he had done while I was on watch. Earlier in the day, we had argued the usefulness in taking along things with a great deal of weight like the metals, but in the end, we agreed that with the current goings on in Scav County, the caravan might require additional fortifications. If we met them and the junk didn't get used, we could shed it off like a snake's skin and leave it in the sand. Slit shifted and stretched in his sleep with each item I removed from his person. A searching hand clasped at air and gave up when it found nothing, then he pulled his leg and a half in to curl up into himself and his left arm was pulled in too. This left little room for me on the sleep rolls with him balled up among his things, so there was no choice but to spoon myself around him and tie our belt loops together with some twine. A hundred days ago, he'd have grabbed my hand and tried to snap it off. You get used to a particular person's touch and care, don't you? And even in your sleep, you can tell the difference. A hundred days ago, I'd have punished him for touching me too.

I thought that I would sleep for a few short hours, wake up with him and then begin my shift sifting through the stockpile of scrap and surplus laying in piles around the caverns. Mum and I made a killing, literal and figurative, collecting this and that with our skill in shooting. It was all a matter of selecting the cream of the crop for bartering our way up that lift Ducky and Phil spoke of.

Usually, it was Ducky who couldn't sleep, he was the one who would normally lie there unable to close his eyes, but this time it was me. My guts hurt, grinding and snarling for some real food. The maggot farm was kicked, three inches of rotten sludge at the bottom which even the flies refused to bother with. We needed to refill it, soon so that the crawlies would have time to grow fat and feed us both as we packed and on the long journey. I'd need to be able to salt and roast um proper so they'ed keep well on the trip, and not turn into winged beasties before we could gobble them up. Oh, it might not have been merely hunger. The catnip Arddie had sent me off with was doing its job, I'd been crass for no reason throughout that day and the one before it, now every so once in a while I got the deep burning sensation that usually signaled a fast approaching need to stuff all the clean linen I could find down my grundies. I'd hurt for a day, maybe two, before the miserable _day one_ of hell week.

Very nearly did I fall asleep, lulled by the warmth under a blanket and against Slit's broad back, but my dreams never came. A thunderous boom had sounded. It wasn't from nearby, no, it was echoing over many miles. I jolted fully awake, Slit just about leaped from his skin and was sitting up before I could do more than lift my head and peer about. It sounded enormous, like the roar of the earth opening somehow and swallowing everything up. The former War Boy's eyes darted all over, lit only by the single oil lamp kept burning through the hours of darkness to provide light in case of an emergency which would otherwise have us stumbling about blindly in the pitch of night. I felt him pulling and undoing the cord between us, reaching behind himself and untying so he could turn. I expected him to stand and start toward the ladders and to where Wilson now stood watch. He didn't. He rotated completely and lifted his remaining leg to swing it over my head as I sat up. I was pulled closer at the waistband into the narrowing space between his thigh and his stump, then gripped about the shoulder and the waist as he tilted his head this way and that to listen. There were fainter bangs and pops. Smaller explosions from somewhere far away. I wanted to be annoyed, right pissed off that he kept getting grabby any time something was heard, and we heard a great deal over the few days we'd been home, but I wanted more urgently to know what he thought that massive resonance of destruction had been.

"Duck? What was that? Can't tell which way-" I began, only to have him answer before I could finish.

"Only thing that could blow like that is the camp with the oil pump," he said.

I knew the spot, a tiny refinery and pumping operation further North than my patch and just a touch to the east. It was where most of the guzz in this region came from. Slit was right, that's the only thing which could make a big bang out here. They'd had status near to what Wilson had, untouchable, too important to destroy. If the Storm Chasers weren't worried about defiling the region's only reliable source of guzz, where exactly did they get their own? Who knows. Everything we knew about them was rumor at best.

"You think they'll come this way?" I asked, worried they might turn to explore the roots of our mountain after they were through with the fuel peddlers. Sometimes it seemed that the ruckus of war was getting closer and closer.

"What else besides you is this way? Wind would have covered our tire tracks by now. No reason to come here." The cannon fodder hummed through a sigh, although, the way his fingers were tightening around my shoulder said plainly that he questioned the reliability of his own opinion. I know he was trying to be reassuring, mimicking the way I'd spat white lies to him in the past. I saw through it quickly. He just couldn't promise anything. I understood but couldn't separate my hypocrisy from his lie. More irritation came, yet I liked the way he pulled me ever closer and rested his chin on my shoulder. Hunger pangs still rocked my core.

"There will have to be more treadie tracks soon. Tomorrow morning, Dune's taking the bike and going out for maggot food." I told him, hoping he would understand the need for at least one of us to leave the safety of the caves for the good and full bellies of the others.

"Alone?" Slit asked tersely, almost disbelieving. "You madder than I thought?!"

"I've been out in the thick of war parties cruising about before, How do you think I came about upon your roastie toastie behind? By sitting at home?" I tried to convince him, but like any stubborn man, he had his own argument and sought to prove sound reason wrong.

"This is _different_ , Dune," He huffed, making a dramatic motion of swinging his arm. It was as if he were presenting something which should have been plain to see. "Joe's war parties were after _one_ rig, these fuck-heads are after _anything_ that moves out here! No deal, you're not leaving!"

"You're not her father! You can't order her around!" I snapped.

That was a knee-jerk reaction, words chucked with a sharp edge. His mouth popped open and then snapped shut. I may have cut at one of his nerves, he had problems with that word, father. I had noticed this but not yet found the will to bring it up. Sad thing, how the terms Joe Issues and Daddy Issues are one in the same. He seemed to suppress a roar, instead seething words sneaking out between his clenched jaws.

"Fine, but fuck the bike, I'm going with and we're taking the car," he grunted.

"Fine," I agreed.

" _Fine,_ " He replied, a moment later allowing himself to flop back into the rumpled betting with a hollow thud resonating from the air in his chest.

I tried to leave him be, meaning to turn around and lay with my back to him, but it was much too cold out here, in the garage chamber. Damn gaping hole in the top. Lovely for star gazing, shit if you want to sleep out here without freezing in the winter nights. I turned back to him and tried not to feel somehow defeated when he emitted a pleased rumble at my return to the spot behind him.

When we woke from broken and shallow sleep, it was time to tell Wilson what we planned to do. I was of the opinion that if he had stayed here for a time on his own, he could do it again in return for the promise of real food. He argued, tried to talk us out of it, not because he'd have to spend a few more hours on watch, but because we might run into hostiles. It was terribly strange, listening to the old man scold me for being reckless when the threat of starvation was just as serious as the threat of a violent death. Slit was no help, he just stood against a wall with his arms crossed and looking away. He was still cross with me for the argument shared the night before.

It was one thing the old man said as we undid straps, shoved the heavy shit off the roof and got into the car, one string of words which hacked up my will to hold back the true-blue fear of what lay out there beyond the sight of my scope. He said ' Don get yourself into trouble, your mum didn't do the things she did so you could go and get yourself murdered.'. Slit's brows rose at that, even he knew or sensed that the sentence the old man spoke was loaded with meaning I was supposed to recognize. I did and I didn't. I sat in the car in my usual seat, fighting the memory of Mum leaving, going away and leaving me with a strange man charged with looking after my scorched corpus which refused to stop breathing. I don't know what she left to do, maybe get supplies, or food, or water. I don't know. I just couldn't seem to remember. That's why Wilson isn't my friend because I had feared him so back when I couldn't move. No, he never hurt me beyond what was necessary to heal my brokenness, but I never said it was okay, I never told Mum it was alright to leave me there with some strange man I didn't know. I know, when she came back, she came with relief... I was still so damn angry she left me alone for so, so long. It was all so far away, like a memory from babyhood, from a time before a reliable recall. Was it not a time of rebirth anyhow? Was it not when the era of innocent childhood came to a fast close and the time of a scavenger fast rose? Rebirth is traumatic. Duck was snapping his fingers and dropping a hand on this scav's shoulder to pull her out of her undone head.

"Dune? Eyes on," he said almost gently. He must have had his worries of what might happen if I wasn't watching the goings on outside this vehicle, an enclave of thought and time. We could be killed at any moment and it could all go to ruin.

"You good?" He asked when I gave him no audible reply.

"Never better," I fibbed, loading my weapon and leaning on the open window with it, ready to put lead in anything that moved in a way I didn't like. I never bothered to mention that I saw a field of sunflowers, not the desolate lands we both knew so well, because what would be the point of worrying him like that?

"Same," He said unto me responding in kind with his own sarcasm, voice telling a tale of wistful regret in the next breath. "Never could get around their defenses. Woulda grabbed Guzz from the source if it weren't for the flying lead all around the place."

He spoke of the place we were headed. Well, now I know why he decided to go to the buzzards for it, the guzz. A faction he was familiar with and whose dens are easy enough to infiltrate if they were out on their nightly wild hunt. Part of me wanted to be offended, he should know how to avoid flying lead, hanging out with me. He might have gotten the guzz at the refinery just fine if he'd brought me, if we had sought to do trade, if we were being reasonable and not pandering to his damn need to be man enough to fight his way into possession of two full jerrys. I knew part of my outrage was just the day he happened to mention it, too soon before the red storm. I was still mad he had taken a strange road to steal from Buzzards in order to get me to the green place. I might not ever forgive that and I might not ever stop imagining myself, had he been killed, waiting for a companion who would never return.

The sunflowers faded from my sick vision as we moved. Peripherally, I could sense that Slit was being just as watchful, head turning left and right, avoiding the well-beaten roads expertly. A sudden thought passed through my brain, this is more than the skill-set he gained by living here and going out with me for lessons in salvage and sniping. For just a moment I completely forgot that this wasn't his first rodeo -and just what is a rodeo?- for this was not his first war. He even talked about this just as we were arriving days before to be greeted by this madness, how could I forget he was once one of those who live for razing the land and moving in swarms of men coated in powdery layers of white? I only forgot for a moment, only felt confused for a second, but it was long enough to help me feel just a bit stupid.

A thick band of smoke rising into the air and drifting West on the wind lead us on. It seemed to slither through the skies like a great black serpent. We saw no one else on the roads, which was no big shock. Who would be daft enough to come crawling out of hiding at a time like this? Just the former war boy and I. It seemed advantageous in a way. If the Storm Chasers happened to have moved on, we'd have the salvage of the refinery to ourselves. We simply had to refrain from dawdling. The same logic was what had given me glorious advantage after the road war which brought Slit to me. No one wanted to get too near to the devastation Joe Moore's war parties left in their wake too quickly, for fear that they might pull back around or send their own salvage crews.

"Hey, we're getting close," Slit uttered, hands gripping the wheel tightly as he leaned forward to peer out toward where the compound would appear over the next horizon. Neither of us had ever seen it up close without the help of the long-lookers. "I'm going to run by it first, check it out on the scope. I don't want to pull up straight off if there's any Storm-Fuckers or survivors."

Solid reasoning, so I complied, sitting myself up comfortable and taking a peek through the best glass I had. Duck wasn't fooling around, he had every intention of keeping his foot on the gas and readying himself just in case we needed to beat a hasty retreat. The first pass over under my sniper's eye revealed watch towers pulled down and crumbling over the outer wall of concrete in tangles of twisted steel and broken clay roof tiles. There was a body tangled in the razor wire, perhaps a victim that had leaped out of his high perch only to meet a messy doom. There was no gate to speak of, only rubble and rusted chainlink scattered across the laneway. Beyond all of that, barrels once stacked had been overturned, their contents emptied into earth so dry that it would even slurp down guzzoline eagerly. Each great block of rusting metals which had once been barracks or a storehouse was an inferno. I saw no erect bodies, only the rising obelisk of flame and smoke ascending from the back of the compound where the gentle rising and falling of the walking beam and horsehead should have been. The pump and distillation tower had been destroyed, the relatively meager stock of processed guzz had been poured out. Why? Why piss on what could be of use later?

"It's cactus. Everything's blown up or poured out." I told him without taking my eye from the scope.

I now had to lean out with mum's rifle to see behind us while we sped clear passed it. I felt his left hand gripped around my belt and waistband. He was being irritatingly protective, like a broody mother crow.

"Survivors? What about vehicles. Anything that looks like Storm-Fucks?" He questioned, still concerned that he might find that we were being chased at any second.

I shook my head and did another sweep. Again, no signs of movement, only the smoke. There was a mess of fresh tire tracks encircled around the entire camp. I imagine that an entire war party raced about it like a tornado, but too precise in its destructive power to have been a weather event. The perpetrating rigs were nowhere in sight.

"Just tracks, must be long gone. Ducky, why would they wreck the only pump between here and Gas Town?! Why not occupy it?" I pried for his opinion, surely, the failed War Boy must have had something to say about that as he slowed and prepared to turn back to pull up the long laneway in.

"They're breaking what they can't carry back. Consolidating..." He seemed to trail off, grinding his teeth and muttering something under his breath which sounded suspiciously like fragmented cult mantra.

 _If you can't grab the sun, smother it out._ I swear that was what he said.

When we rolled to a stop just a few feet short of the outer ring of debris, it was clear to see the fortifications that had once been in place and had still failed to protect those on the other side of these walls. It appeared that the Storm Chasers had made short work of flamers, armored gunner's stations, the very structures that had provided shelter from the elements. The cinder-block wall was cratered by perhaps many previous attacks, but when the Chasers came, they must have brought more than bullets and thundersticks. Part of the very wall was crushed inward. Slit was the first to exit the vehicle, leaving the motor running so as to cut down the time if we had to scram.

"They had harpoons, and rigs fit enough to tear the gates right off the hinges," he called back to me.

Slit was squatted by the remains of the gate, at least part of it. Wafers of metal lay all over around the frame they had busted apart from. He looked bizarrely at ease there, touching at a ragged hole punched though a half inch of rust corroded plate steel.

"We must festinate then, Ducky," I nudged at him through my words, trying to get him to get up and follow me inside to snatch a body and get the hell out of here.

"The hell does that mean?" He growled, nudging back with an elbow to leave him to whatever the devil he thought he had all the time in the world to do.

"It means to move your arse. Don't wanna get caught here if they come back, or if other Scavs answer the call to the salvaging." My bad mood and urgency were bleeding through into my tone, I could hear it.

"They won't come back, trust me, Storm-Heads already did what they came to do, nothing left to come back for. That's the point." Slit spoke with an eerie air of calm about him, looking up at me with almost bored eyes. No, not bored, unfazed.

That look on his face and the words he spat might as well have cut my tongue out. What do you say to that? It wasn't the facts so much as the way he was entirely without anxiety now that he had seen how thoroughly the Storm Chasers had fucked this place. It was beyond any effort that could be afforded toward repair. Yes, he was right, no one would come back to it and those who'd come for the scrap wouldn't find much. We weren't there for either of those things, were we? We were there for corpses.

I left him to admire the work of evil, moving toward Shirley to fetch the tarps we'd brought for wrapping up the maggot munchies. When I peered around the open lid of the trunk, he was on his feet again, but running his fingers over the twisted metal flesh of what was once heavy hardware to hold the gates on. It hit me, he wasn't just idly poking around, he was _absorbing_ all the information that the cooling battlefield offered him. It was not hard, at that moment, to see the War Boy under the layers of salvaged clothes and a Scav's hard-earned layer of dust and grit. I was looking at a soldier calculating the strength of an enemy based on the devastation they left behind. Maybe it was the look of his shaven head, maybe it was guilt over having just about gnawed his head off for having a good, patient look around, but I had to wonder if everything up until this point was just an attempt to convert him out of his very nature. If it was some misguided an unconscious attempt on my part to do that very thing, I'd failed miserably, and the moral reasoning of it was probably absolute bunk if not unmitigated cruelty. Later. I had to think about that later, maggot food. The snarl from deep in my guts rumbled as if to remind me of what issue was in need of more immediate attention. Feeling like an asshole could be a symptom of the lady parts ramping up to have their regularly scheduled -a week early, actually- fit anyway.

For perhaps only a minute, I shadowed him with the tarps under my arm while he looked at the wounds on the exterior walls, I bet he saw easily which ones were new and which were decades old. Eventually, I had to remind him I was there, clearing my throat so that he would turn to look, then nodding toward the torn open entryway. I stepped over threshold first, Slit pulled his pistol from its holster, although I think more out of habit than any real caution. His gait was casual, more of a plod than a purposeful walk as his head swiveled about to take in the sights. I might have even caught him lifting his chin to sniff at the air before pulling up his scarf. It wasn't the bodies, they hadn't been sitting for more than hours through the cool night and it was then barely an hour after dawn. The breeze was blowing the smoke and fumes of spilled or burning guzz away from us. We were both looking at it, a fire pit thrown together on the spot near the entryway and the remains of a shared meal. The victors had feasted, the embers were still smoldering and the aroma of the charred bone was too thick from this distance not to smell it as we walked past it. The smell of long pig always bothered Slit.

The head of the butchered body, a man perhaps in his mid-thirties, sat on a little stool by the fire pit as if he'd been invited to a little party and was the last to leave, only he _couldn't_ leave. Something about the severed head simply sitting there, an expressionless stare frozen in place, disturbed me deeply. It was the hair, I decided. The head had a rat tail and a dark halo of curls like Duck would get if his hair was allowed to grow wild for too long. I tipped the stool back with the toe of my boot and let it roll back into the ashes just so that I wouldn't have to look at it. Slit chuckled at me with a cock of his head, and I could see his cheek tighten with a grin against the dark cotton of his scarf.

" _You're_ getting queasy, Cannibal?" I heard him sneer.

"He was looking at her funny," I snorted back.

He only laughed more, a dark guffaw as we had our closer look at it all, avoiding the far end of the compound where the smoke would become too thick to breathe. It didn't look like there was any material value left to the place, which only left the dead. I've never been bothered by corpses, but the sheer number of them this time, it was harder to look at. Too many had died all at once, some looked much too young. Some were stacked up upon one another as a tangle of limbs. Most had been stripped nude. Even their clothes were taken or maybe burned. The fiends certainly left nothing for pilfering. One pair of corpses bothered me more than the others, they were left clothed and lying where they had been gunned down, the splatters of red against the dirt said so. I was standing where their killer must have been. It was a man and a woman, the man curled over the other, as if trying to shield her from what had been a spray of lead at close range. I felt a frightful wave of nausea. What happened here was heinous. The only happiness that would ever be found here again would be felt by the swarms of flies tucking in for lunch around noon when the world warmed up enough for the meat all around us to make a big stink. Foregoing words, since there was little left about this place to discuss, Slit and I went about finding the thickest, meatiest of the bunch to drag home. Men tend to have more mass, so it was no surprise to me that the bodies of two men were the ones we chose to wrap in the tarps and haul to Shirley's open and welcoming trunk. Still silent, we seated ourselves and began the return trip.

That sick feeling in my middle never quite left me, and the motions of the car were not helping at all. I had blood on my hands from separating the fallen lovers I had seen so that the male could be taken and turned to crawlies and I kept on thinking about that mound of bodies. The image in particular which kept inserting itself between every other thought in my brain was what had looked to be the round face of a boy, perhaps twelve years old, peering out from between the corpses of his elders with wide open eyes that were beginning to dry out and sink into their sockets. That could have been me, when the raiders came to the Green Place all those years ago I had been just about that age.

I was half way out the window faster than you could say, Chunder Loo of Akim Foo, retching up the nasty stuff Wilson had given us to munch on early that morning as we were arguing our reason to head out for scaving. Slit had a hold on my belt again, and this time I was thankful for it, I might have launched myself out a bit too far and still failed to avoid splattering the door and back fender.

"Jeeze, Dune!" Slit was shouting, though, I don't think it sounded crass.

I was still heaving for a good while although there was not much left to come up. Good boy, he was driving one handed and leaning over awkwardly to keep me from falling out the window while I spewed all over poor sweet Shirley. I owed him for this, after I'd spent all day being a snippy piss-ant about every little thing. I stayed out there for a few moments after I was through, the wind felt nice now that I felt unreasonably hot and sweaty all over from an upset gut, I almost felt like I could slip into a short nap just hanging half way out of a moving car. Getting sick like that makes you careless of anything outside how shitty you feel. When I retreated back into the safety of the cab, mostly because Duck kept pulling on the seat of my pants to get me back inside, he looked me over as if he could find the reason for getting ill on my very surface. His eyes were bugged out and his brows were twitching.

"That was a lot of bodies," Was all I could summon forth for an answer.

He drew in and pushed out a harsh breath, perhaps surprised as I was by just how much the sight of it had unsettled me. Bodies don't bother me, I hack um up all the time as was necessity, but you just don't see them or living people for that matter in those kinds of numbers out here. Last time I had seen that was, well, home before mum and I left it. Perhaps that was why it startled me so. I found myself a bit embarrassed, I was supposed to be one of the nastiest long-shots in Scav Country. A good sniper with an iron stomach and a cool head. I wondered how soft the former War Boy thought I was now.

"It's fine," Ducky began, interrupting my thoughts and glancing over a few times between me and the road. "I yakked all over the place the first time I saw that many, too."

How curious, for him to admit something like that. I didn't bother to correct him, tell him it wasn't the first time, rather the second. The drive wasn't long, I only had it in me to stay upright long enough that we could see the mountain that would lead us home, then I turned myself away from the window, wiped the filth from my chin and leaned against his shoulder a bit.

"You're a sweet arsehole." I told him.

"Thanks?" He murmured back but didn't move to shove me off him.

As we neared the cave mouth, we saw Wilson out on the cliffs, ever watchful, as we pulled down the path toward home. He vanished back through the portal to the subterranean world, surely so he could greet us as soon as we were inside.

"Any trouble? Anything that needs patched up?" The old man was jogging toward Shirley, panting and heaving giant, laborious breaths. He'd hurried all the way down from the watch spot. The car had not even stopped completely before his liver spotted hand snaked in through the open window to urge a Scav to show him where the blood on her hands came from. He was pulling back my vest to check for a chest or belly wound. I wrapped the open vest around myself to stop him.

"Not Dune's, from the maggie grub in the back, an Slit's fine too." I reassured if nothing else then to get him to stop fussing and calm himself.

"Good, alright, good." Wilson sighed and scratched at the center of his chest. Slit's eyes appeared following that gesture on the old man's part when I turned to look at him.

"You say maggot food?" Wilson continued in a question.

I nodded as Slit and I got out, I had to push Wilson a bit with the door to get him to move. The tone of the old man's voice said something his words had not. _Disgust_.

"You got objections you didn't get a chance to spit before we left?" I spat. Ah, there was that terseness I couldn't seem to shake lately.

"Too close to cannibalism is all. Ain't hungry enough yet. I'll stick by my cans." he announced proudly.

"Well, Dune's more than hungry enough."

As a matter of fact, I was craving meat. Can't get that lovely flavor out of a bowl maggots no matter how fat and juicy. Even my sour head didn't miss how quickly I had leapt from blowing chunks to the urge to shove new chunks down the gullet. Slit released an odd grumble and Wilson didn't seem to get the joke.

Ducky groaned at the early flies coming up out of the trunk as he popped it open. He had to swing his arm through the air at them to dissipate the cloud of insects before he could begin hauling the first man up and out, letting the naked heels thud to the stone and drag. When it was my turn with the one I had chosen, the tarp caught on something else in the trunk, Slit's tool bag I think, and pulled away to reveal a bearded face and foggy eyes dried to shriveled pits in deep under the brow.

I heard Wilson wheeze in a stricken breath. "Shhhit. Carver."

Slit grunted, a guttural voicing of inquiry. Wilson didn't immediately respond. He distanced himself by a few steps and leaned back, carefully lowering his bottom to sit between the open doors of his van. Every wrinkle deepened, sallowing his already toothlessly sunken image.

"Knew'im, Carver. Fuck... Gah!" He growled, more ferocious than I thought the old dog could sound and scratching through his grey hair roughly. "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

I had to quit dragging the corpse long enough to look at Wilson, confusion twisting up my face so strongly that I was physically aware of the contortions of my lips trying to avoid cutting themselves on the sharp and yellows. That's old poetry, senseless, useless stuff. There's no such place as Bethlehem.

"What the fuck was all the nonsense?" Slit said, mirroring my very own thought in voice.

"Yeats! End of days! The Second Coming! Only that guy, Ripzag, setting the whole joint on fire, he's the fucking anti-Christ. That's what!" Wilson had stood to wave his arms about and tear through the air in wild, agitated motions we might not have thought possible for him at his age as he ranted on with his nonsensical before-time speak. What's a "christ" anyhow? It probably wasn't too good for him to be carrying on like that. Now he slouched himself, sinking toward his seat once more and plopping down with a grunt and a heavy breath.

"You a'right there, Wilson?" I tried, now genuinely concerned that he might have popped a big bleeder inside or the worn out ticker, just like Mumsy.

"Carver and his wife found out they were havin' a baby... They just found out. Ya know, I delivered that sonofabitch, Rip, way back before this shit-salad-fuck-hole went to _complete_ hell. I regret it now, don't I? Should've strangled him with his fucking umbilical cord." Wilson said, eyes distant, glazed. He was somewhere else in his head. I wondered if that's what I looked like when I'd go off on a skull-wander.

The part where you drag the bodies to the maggot bins is never fun. Big bodies make for more maggots, but big bodies aren't easy to drag up two ladders and through the narrow passages, which require one to traverse both up and down uneven rock. Since Ducky has been around it's been easier but still a chore. Slit sat at the top of the first ladder and just out of my line of sight, braced with his back against a wall and his right foot against a protuberance of stony outcrop. From that position, he would pull a rope tethered around the first body while I climbed up the ladder and steadied it so that it would not catch on the scrap forged rungs. At the end of the climb, I helped to heave it up. It was a routine we both knew well. Twice over we did this, and then we began the arduous task of hauling the bodies up another short ladder and down the natural stone corridor toward the maggot farm. The smell is something of a torture as you near the place, but I was well accustomed. Ducky still retched and gagged a few times before pulling his scarf up as he tugged along the corpse he'd picked out at the refinery by the ankles. I had pulled up my scarves long before we started the dragging. There's something about the smell of decay, it cannot be described, but it's something you recognize immediately and instinct tells you to stay away from it. It takes time and the ability to overcome instinct to do this brand of work. When your other option is starvation, you do what you have to. Once the business of dragging them to the buckets and bins was through, a machete and a meat cleaver resting against the largest of the bins were picked up. The bodies had to be hacked down and processed. All the shit tubes needed to go, lungs are no good, probably full of dust and whatever else the owner had been inhaling all their life. Other organ meats go into one bucket.

First the sludge at the bottom of the buckets needed to be tossed out, straight through the very hole in the wall we were passing through to sit out on the cliffs to do watch. I started this chore -It was my turn after all- while Slit put on one of the aprons and picked up the heavy machete. I always thought it was funny when he put on the bigger apron. It said "Kiss the cook" on it if you looked closely enough to make out the letters among all of the black and brown stains.

He'd done this many times before by then. He started with the arms, hacking through at the shoulder first, then the elbows, then he sliced up the skin in rocking motions with a sharper blade from his belt to open it up and make it easier for the flies to seed the flesh with eggs. I recalled the day I started teaching him this, the first day I trusted him with a knife. He'd looked at me so funny, the day I first passed my knife to him. I know he considered cutting me to ribbons with it, but he didn't. That was the day he began to trust too, I think. Can't be sure.

I took out the first few buckets and dumped them down the cliffs, briefly wondering if the deep colors of rotten people juices streaking down the rock from all the gore produced over the years would be a sign to investigate if anyone explored the mountains in this direction. Probably no more than somebody sitting on a cliff in a lawn chair at this point, if we're being honest. Slit began speaking as I returned to make a third trip outside with the big and wide plastic bins Mum and I always used for things like rib cages and the quartered torsos.

"Nutter," He used to snarl and let that word drip off his tongue like venom. In the last few months it was starting to sound like endearment. "Got a question."

"Hmm?" I dropped the bucket and moved to adjust the scarf wrapped around my face. "Lettah rip, then."

"Not a question you can answer," He said, which was only confusing.

"Why you asking Dune, then? Whats the thinkin' in that?" I asked, and heard a soft laugh in return at first.

"Question is: what's going on at The Canyon?" he said, simple and quick.

I blinked a few times, befuddled by his words for a few seconds. "You're right, She can't answer that. There a reason that's knockin' around in your head, Mate?"

"Well, we got war all through here. What if we could skip more than half the trip through this rust hole, all of The Dunes and the Dead Barrens, bypass Gas Town and The Dump too..." Seemed like he'd go on and on if no one stopped him.

"You wanna check what's up there, make sure it really ain't in the cards." I asked, anxious and eager at the same time to be doing something, anything other than watch and maggot farming.

He nodded without looking up from his work hacking down the legs to manageable chunks. "Would be better trying to haul a whole caravan of bog softies through a war zone."

I nodded too, thinking about it now. I agreed completely, Ard and her clan didn't know what it was like out here, but how to check out The Canyon without putting one's self in the line of fire? There might be a way.

"We could take the bike. Small an' speedy, easy to hide when we're not on it, stash it in the roots of the mountains... but Duck, the rest would see us climbin' up a mountain on foot. That could be a problem." I couldn't lie to him, make him think he could do something he might not be able to. With that leg of his, even a gentle incline slowed him.

He shifted his weight off his peg leg and back unto it with a low growl in his chest before hacking down on the knees of the corpse I'd picked harder. I pulled my knife from its sheath to join him, to begin gutting with the sharpest blade I owned.

"Got an ass-load of climbing with the fucking leg under my belt. I can _do_ it. I'll deal." He declared, sure of himself, and how could I tell him otherwise? Had he not proven me wrong many times before? Has he not always fought with the highest fury to make himself useful?

"Fine, but this was your idea, so you're breaking it to Wilson that we're headed out this time. Tomorrow morning, before sunrise."

He looked up, paused, made a face at me, but rolled his eyes and seemed to agree with me without argument for once. "Fine,"

I echoed the word in return. At least this time, the ending agreement wasn't at all crass. Just an ending to a simple discussion regarding our plots and planning.

"Leave the ribs on that one outta the bucket. Gonna have some real food tonight." I told him, and he cringed, but did as I asked as we set up the maggot farm as it should be for the last time. We finished as quickly as we could and left this place to the flies for now.

Night crept back to us. The three of us forgot watch for a time, and we all gathered around a fire pit to eat and talk. None of us had heard the ruckus of war echoing across the wastes for more than twelve hours, and there was a fragile sense of safety. Slit and Wilson were digging through those cans looking for things which were still edible. Me though? I had better plans. I had myself a clean bucket, some lake salt, and those ribs of the lover-boy-corpse turned crawlie dinner. I was scrubbing them down nice in fresh water and salt when I spotted those damn men looking at me as if I had scorpions crawling out of my ears.

"The hell are you two gawkin' at?" I called.

Wilson looked pale, Slit was fidgeting at the collar of his shirt anxiously.

"You know it's not right, what you're doin'. Don't you?" Wilson quavered at me.

I looked down into the bucket, and although I knew what he meant, I couldn't be bothered to engage him seriously about it. Fuck him and his old balls. He had no idea what it was like to lose blood on a monthly basis and get sick if you didn't have your bite of the good stuff beforehand. Fuck him and fuck Slit and his spoilt War Boy life too if he didn't like it.

"Ooooh, of COURSE she's doin' it right. Dune's seasoning it, ain't she? 'Cause Dune's not an _animal_." Fuck 'em both.

I watched Slit as he pulled up his scarf over his nose and curled his arms around his middle. I simply couldn't find it in myself to feel sympathetic. Meat is meat, and we're _all_ hungry. They refused any offering to share that night and there was nothing I could do for it. If they didn't want to eat it, I couldn't force them, and there was no way I was going to attract attention by starting a fire outside.

It was over breakfast the next morning that Ducky decided to let Wilson in on what we planned to do. Slit had been scooping what looked to be a thick amber paste from one of those damn cans and popping it into his mouth with a finger when he told the doctor where we were going. You would have thought he'd said we were plotting to drive off the nearest cliff.

"Are you both completely out of your minds?!" he had to wipe his chin, spittle and crumbs from his breakfast dribbling from his lower lip as he chided us, loudly. "I get food. I get going out to get that. But driving up to The Canyon? In that obnoxious racket machine? You can hear that fucking thing from a mile and a half away, especially now that it's all so called tuned up."

"Maggot food," I corrected him, he didn't give me time to tell him we weren't taking the car though. His pointing finger moved from jabbing in Shirley's direction to mine.

"YOU had long-pig for dinner last night, don't you even start," he snapped.

Slit was beginning to growl and grit his teeth together, lips pulling back. "We're taking the bike, we're not just 'driving up' to have our heads blown off."

It took a great deal more convincing, and even then Slit simply stood up in the middle of Wilson's final argument, made his way to the bike and fired her up, goggles on and scarf pulled up over his nose. Wilson was up too, shouting and carrying on. Slit was just revving the bike to drown him out, making hard eyes at me. I supposed that was my cue, although I didn't appreciate being called this way. I had to throw my boots and coat on quick, gather up my rifle and munitions, snatch the long-lookers from where they were left in the car and only just managed to get myself settled behind the impatient cannon fodder before he was speeding down the tunnel to the outer world. I hadn't even gotten my goggles up over my eyes yet. I saw Wilson at the cave mouth when I looked back, standing there looking forlorn and something like a worried mother.

It was barely dawn, and still hard to see as the sun's first glitter shyly reached over the horizon. All I could think about was Slit's rudeness, that and the biting cold of morning chewing my hands numb as I held onto his belt.

"You ever call Dune over like that again, an' she'll turn you from a rooster to a hen in one shot!" I cried over the wail of the motor into the back of his neck, hoping to sound as serious as I felt about that little man-posturing show of his.

"Nah!" He barked back. "You like my dangly shit too much."

"Oof! Eat me, Slit!" I retorted, full well knowing that he'd only swing back with something snappy.

"Maybe later," He turned his head this time so I could see his left eyeball looking back at me as he shouted.

Oh, he was just being nasty now without the decency of even knowing what he was talking about. I only had an idea myself. I might have found it funny if uttered under any other circumstance. "You don't even know what that _means!_ "

"You wern't in Crank's grease pit ALL the time!" He laughed this time.

Cripes, what all had they talked about? Maybe he was just bullshitting me, repeating something he'd heard the pervert joker say to someone else. Slit was probably full of it. He didn't seem too knowing about these things the other night, save for the basic mechanics. I said nothing more, and perhaps he thought he'd won that spat. It was, at the time, far easier and possibly kinder to let him have that one. I'd been a big ol' bitch the last few days and his ego had surely taken on a few bruises because of it.

We rode on. Sometimes I had to point over his shoulder to direct him to the place we meant to go, close enough that we could hike along the foot of the mountains before scaling upward toward a place where we could overlook at least part of the place where it had been populated the last time I was brave enough to scout the area. That had been a few years back, not more than a day after Furiosa and Joe's near-legendary road war. I had come for corpses and scrap, never once doubting that something must have crashed at some point in the tight passage. What I found was chaos too fervent to approach in the daylight, too risky to explore in the night. War boys were everywhere, scrambling about, some leaving the area, others howling into the wind from their horrific injuries, and I did not stay too long. I took one corpse in the night but lost it on my way back to my now long departed fan sled when I was surprised by Rock Riders who had scattered too. Who can fault them for it with all of the mad war dogs crawling all over their territory in a blaze of kamicrazee fury. The Riders hadn't detected me, but I could not risk taking the time to haul the corpse along on foot too far when those howling motors were drawing so near so quickly. A few weeks later, Ducky and I nearly starved.

I was curious of how long the War Boys camped there, waiting for help or struggling to clear the rocks with their remaining uninjured. Rock Riders surely tried to take back their territory. Slit's brothers likely had to fend off waves of Scav Country's worst until they gathered their strength to leave the place. Ducky and I know _someone_ controls The Canyon, and it wasn't Rock Riders anymore. We heard it from the horses mouth in a few words at Wilson's once, that you can't get near the place directly without my kind taking aim. They had snipers, and I had seen the glitter of their scope glass more than once as I passed it on by to seek out the old doctor on his blessed territory. Whenever Riders made passing mention of The Canyon, they would spit on the thirsty dirt bitterly for their loss. If Duck and I could get just close enough to observe, see what was what, maybe we could determine if whoever controlled the place had the demeanor to be persuaded to hold their fire. White flags will sometimes do it, maybe they would answer to Scav Country peace signals. It was worth a shot if we could get out of the way of Storm Chasers that much sooner with the coming caravan. That, anyhow, was the hope.

Finding the place to stop and conceal the bike from anyone who might pass by the area was as easy as sleeping in. The astute could probably follow the tire tracks, but not many ride so close to the rippled skirts of the range because it was inefficient, unless of course, you happen to be a Rock Rider. Everyone around probably had better things to do than thieve one lowly bike at the moment anyway. We stopped to stand as still as we could and listened, trying to detect past the wind whipping around our ears any sound in The Canyon from here. If we could, we'd already come too close and they'd have surely heard the bike. We heard nothing, but that was no comfort, we were both half deaf, and there is no such thing as flawless stealth.

Now came the part I had my head all rightfully worried about: the long walk south to get close to The Canyon without strolling up their laneway like the suicidal, all while racing the rising sun to avoid being seen in the full strength of the morning light. Slit was a determined thing, and unless I had been the one inflicting it way at the beginning with his care, he did quite a job of ignoring pain. I know the truth though, walking on that leg was never going to be a happy thing for him. Too much damage had been done, partly my fault, when the traumatic loss of it took place and the infections which plagued it thereafter. He hadn't ever been able to walk great distances without that forked-up face twisting up just enough that I could detect it. A half mile, that's all it took for his steps to go from brisk and purposeful to weary and careful. Many times in the past he had tweaked the false limb, trying lighter materials and slimmer parts, the best he could do was the shock spring of a little kart and the aluminum parts of an old coat rack, the rest was heavy car bits-n-bobs. It was still an awfully inconvenient weight on him, but moved better and gave him more mobility than the wooden peg had. My worries doubled when the place we needed to begin our climb finally came into our sight.

The only path wasn't so much a path per se as it was the mess leftover after a natural slide of rock and debris long, if not eons ago. It looked as though a giant had picked up handfuls of boulders and slung them about like a child with their playthings. At least the slide, whenever it had happened, had carved a somewhat groove halfway up the rugged slope, after that we'd be faced with the crumbling rock which would make it impossible for Slit unless he parked his pride at the summit and accepted my help up there.

It would not have been a quick skip to the loo even if Slit had all his parts. I was even having some trouble now, suddenly realizing that perhaps I had not truly gained back all of the goodly coordination which had left me for a time after the cursed lightning. It was my right arm, maybe it lost some measure of strength, maybe it was my feet, the nerves in the soles had been frayed. Sometimes I couldn't feel where my feet were and the damn right hand felt little anyway. Slit might have needed a push at his backside to get him and the leg up on the ledges past the slide, but I needed to be gripped by the forearm and pulled up from the places my fingers just couldn't seem to grip. Seemed that the both of us had to dump some of that sinful pride on the way up. The craggy cliffs and switchback zigzagging we had to do to get up to that secret spot left our palms rough and our knuckles scuffed open, and there was still the climb down to look forward too. Just couldn't catch a break, once something on us started to heal, we were always getting new dings and scratches.

When the first true sliver of the sun's bright face peaked over the horizon we saw the glimmering of the steel support struts which held up quite a lovely thing, a sniper's tower. What I wouldn't have given to sit in one of those. Couldn't stay there awing at it for long, one peek through the long-lookers told me that a man whose shape was silhouetted against the morning sky was on his way up it to scan the horizons with his scope and lead spitter now that the sun had shown her lovely self upon the world. Slit and I had to hurry, but do so quietly.

If that sharpshooter just so happened to look this way, he'd find easy targets. I couldn't climb and shoot at the same time. The place we had to settle was a wound in the side of the great hill of earth, a deep crack in the rock, maybe inflicted by an earthshaker in the time before the before. We had slightly higher ground and plenty of distance but we could not, of course, see down to the floor of The Canyon, not that there would be much at that level to observe. This was a place where high ground is a thing of life and death. Being way up over the heads of everyone else gave you power. We couldn't see everything, but I knew for sure that the little rusty sheds, potentially serving as barracks and the crane had not been there before. We were reasonably hidden, could duck down into that wide split in the stone, no problem. I even had to climb a few inches and pull myself up the jagged walls within the crevice to see.

We didn't have to lift the long lookers before we knew without a doubt who it was who ruled this stretch of road. We could hear them doing their morning salute to their deity, Slit's deity.

"Rise and shine! Rise and fookin' shine, Apostles of Awful! Veeight's damned! Forgotten! Reclaimed!"

We could hear the voice booming, even from this distance and very close to the height of another adjacent peak, and next the clank clang clank of I wasn't sure what. What I saw through the longlookers was a man coated in powdery white paint, no real shocker there now that I've heard the name of the War Fodder God shouted, but I hadn't seen one quite like this before. He was a war boy, scarificated and all, but he wore _armor_. A leather harness around his rather broad shoulders and those plastic pads some claimed were once equipment for friendly sport and... were those assless chaps? He was pounding a cricket bat wrapped in barbed wire against a shield fixed in place on his arm, presumably with straps. He stood atop one of the sheds, pounding away on his shield. I saw more boys lumbering out of the few structures which could be seen from our vantage point, seemed that most of them had just been abruptly woken, judging by the way they scrubbed their eyes and how patchy their paint was. I saw skin in every conceivable tone. Curiously, some of them had mohawks. Hair! On War Boys! Freaky. I passed the lookers over to Slit, he only let off a breath in a guttural groan, as if he already knew what he was going to see and didn't want to.

"Waste of a trip out. That's a shield buckler, an' those are Scrotus' boys." He grumbled before dumping my good lookin' glass back into my right hand.

I felt like I should know that name, Scrotus. Why did it sound familiar? Never mind it. I was too busy being sympathetically disappointed along with my Ducky. From the way Slit was lowering himself back down into the crack we had chosen to hide in, it appeared that he had been clinging to high hopes about The Canyon. For some reason, I thought it might be worth it to find out if he was just being dramatic. Everyone has a weakness, something they will barter or bend for. Maybe Scrotus' Boys as he called them lacked something the caravan might be able to trade to them.

I only watched for a few minutes more, listening as they chanted their praises to a god that I'm not convinced exists. They still venerated Immortan Joe, and I think Scrotus. What was the relation between the two? The ghostly memory of feeling sun hot iron around my wrists sent a chill up my spine. _Oh_. That's it, that's where I remembered that name from. Scabrous Scrotus, a son of Joe Moore, the fallen guardian of Gas Town, the psycho terror who once stalked the lands to the south and over the mountains, the reason I was half cooked.

I lowered myself back down to drop to my ass next to where Ducky sat. He was scraping a trough in the sand under the heel of his boot. I wanted to know more about the boys we could still hear chanting and shouting back to the man with the shield, it looked like Slit needed a minute to be bitter that he came out here for nothing and I needed a moment to let a terrible memory pass.

"So, there's no way?" I asked.

"Nope."

I sighed, he rumbled from his chest and showed his teeth at nothing but the air around us. He wasn't happy, something else was screwing with him and it was my job to find out what.

"Slit, what else is wrong?" I kept my voice firm but didn't want to seem too harsh. I'd been far too harsh lately.

His eyes flickered up from the deepening groove in the dust he was creating for a moment, then they seemed to go distant and widen with whatever thought had then passed through his skull meat. Something was definitely not right. "Dune, that road we're going to-"

There were renewed shouts from those Scrotus Boys, whooping and hollering and carrying on. At first, we thought we'd been made so we both threw ourselves at the wall of rock to pull ourselves up and have a peek, Slit had his colt in hand, hammer pressed back under his thumb. No. It wasn't us. The sound of a motor reached our ears, making it clear to both of us that our hearing was real shit if they had detected it so long before us, then again, the gunmen had their scopes to watch. We looked East, toward the passage that leads to the wider expanses of The Scavenger Lands. It was a lone car, some sort of ford model pickup with folks standing in the bed and waving cloth that came as close to white as you could get out here. It was a peace signal. We could soon hear them shouting too, though they did not stop. They were pleading, begging, _'let us pass, let us pass'._ They soon were out of our line of sight, where we could not see down into the tight bottleneck. I looked to the Scrotus Boys, some scrambling about, another lifting what could only be... Oh, _shit_. They had a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, I might not have known what it was if my Pa had not described what it felt like to fire one once. The wood accents upon the weapon were deceptively pretty, the sound of it going off was not. The boom rattled my chest, even from here, and I dropped from where I clung to the stone again unto my backside.

"Fuck!"

"Shh!" Slit looked back to remind me that we didn't want to be heard, especially now. It was spooky, seeing him look about, cock his head to listen, stretching up and bobbing his head around to see better. I could hear them cheering out there, no doubt, those folks had been trying to escape Scav Country and the madness out there. They didn't feel that people were justified in wanting to leave via _their_ territory. He was right, there was no way through here.

Once he returned to sit down there, there was only an awkwardness in the silence between us and the ruckus the Boys in The Canyon created as they celebrated the carnage. I wondered, watching Slit as I thought about the things I had seen when Joe's war parties sped through Scav Country. I'd seen plenty of violence, feats of insanity and blind courage. I was still impressed with the ones who ride around high as can be on swaying poles. Were they all like the ones still delighting in death nearby? Was Slit like them?

"Is that what it was like, Slit? Is that what it is to be one of your kind?" I asked, and he looked up at me with hesitance written in his features. In my next breath, I tried to express that I was only curious. I may have made it all sound worse and I felt like a hypocrite. "Not judging just... Was it that easy to kill when you don't have to?"

He looked down between his flesh and metal knees at the dirt, shrugging and forming a scowl with his ruined mouth.

"Yeah, it was easy," He started, kicking at the dirt again a moment later. "They're different though. Not like Citadel Boys. We never liked them and they never liked us. I don't even think _Joe_ liked them around the Citadel."

"Really?" I exclaimed, having had the idea in my head that all War Boys were indoctrinated through believing in a man who claimed to love them. That's what I had always heard from others around here over the years and what I had observed in Slit's once frothing fanatics about the deceitful man.

"Well," He leaned back and rested his head on the rocky wall behind him as he spoke. "Whenever Scrotus turned up to visit Da- _his father_ , and granted this is like... three thousand days ago, maybe more- Joe wouldn't let more than a handful of Scrotus' boys up with him. Everyone else that came with him on the Landmover or with his convoy had to wait below. They used to get bored, grab a few wretches and make 'em scream for the fun of it while they waited on Scabrous to come back down on the lift."

Slit didn't seem bothered by the torture of the common folk, his face never mirrored the cringe I felt forming upon my own. "Didn't trust um? Don't think they're allied with Furiosa then?"

"Well, if she's got some kind of agreement with 'em, and that would only make sense what with the Convoy we saw that one time, it's probably a stiff as fuck... Nah, there's no way we're getting through here. If we tried and they didn't just blow us to bloody chunks, they'd use us as bargaining chips because your people say you have ties with her."

We spoke about it a bit more, and he answered as many of my questions as he could before it became a repetitive string of worries about the trip we were looking forward to. Our talks seemed to end where they started, with Slit reiterating more firmly that these were Great White boys, once the war dogs of scabrous Scrotus and they don't take prisoners. If Furiosa had arranged to have them stationed here on purpose, then she was wise on some level to use them as guard dogs for this spot to make sure the wild, feral madness of Scav Country never spills out. Seemed that this was what might try to happen what with Storm Chasers having popped out of their hidey holes like a quiet infection that had grown without symptom until now, when it decided to get deadly.

The war boy and I had seen what we came to see. We knew more than we had before, but it didn't change our plans at all. We still had to take that road Slit seemed to think was a better option than The Canyon, but only just. I should have asked what he was about to say of that mysterious road before the despicable show which the Boys over there put on for us, but I failed to remember the urgency in his tone and think much more about it. What I was more keen to think on was how we were going to get down this mountain later on. Climbing down is very different from climbing up. I worried about his leg. For now, All that could be done was wait. We were stuck there, in the sheltering shadow of a fracture in the rocky slope for all the hours of daylight. The dust and grit fallen into the crack over untold time gave us somewhere level to sit, at bare minimum there was that comfort.

Didn't have to wait too long before the skimpy breakfast Slit had shared with Wilson came up and bit him in the ass. His guts were grinding and singing painfully in emptiness. Thankfully, we were far enough from The Canyon that having your pipes knocking around wasn't something we worried would be heard. We'd have to be shouting and yipping like dogs to get that kind of attention. He'd simply have to be hungry. Neither he nor Wilson were willing to eat what was offered the night before, they'd rather eat those disgusting old food bits from ancient tin cans. It wasn't enough for a big ol' bloke like Slit. Even if it was by his own doing, I still felt terrible that he had to be in pain like that. He shifted about, scratching at his angry belly in discomfort.

"Dune'll let you know if she spots a scaly snack," I tried but he shook his head.

"No fire to roast off the gut noodles," The man grunted but licked his lips hungrily. Surely lizard flesh sounded like quite the hearty meal to him by this point.

I leaned into the rock with Mum's rifle across my lap and got as comfortable as one could get with sand and stone for your seat and pillow. Duck shifted himself closer and soon we were using one another to lean on while we waited for the daylight to pass. Flesh is a softer place to rest your head than these unwelcoming surroundings.

Noon sucked eggs. It was hot, light pounded hard right into the ass-crack of the mountainside at us. Ducky was sweating balls and I was sweating bullets. We tried to nap through the day but all either of us could get was fifteen minutes with our eyes closed before the heat made us feel miserable and sick. Couldn't even sit too close, our combined body heat was unbearable in conjunction with the damn sun. Couldn't take it. I shed some layers. My Pa's jacket which had kept me lovely and toasty in the chilly morning was now trying to roast me. Next was mum's vest. I didn't even bother to fold them. Slit was inspired to do the same. His leather vest came off and he tossed it toward the pile of my discarded coverings, then he rolled the sleeves of his shirt up over his forearms. I was certainly sweaty but he was slick all over. I passed him the canteen. He'd need to replace that water he was pushing out through his skin.

He was about to take a sip but pulled the spout from his lips and locked his peg leg straight so that he could lift it and bring it down hard into the sand right by my knee. Naturally, I jerked away but a heartbeat later I saw what all that fuss was about. From under the foot of his peg leg, I spied the twitching legs of a great spider. It must have fallen into the crack and with the midday sun baring down in all its fury, the creepy crawly had probably been trying to find respite in the shade under our legs.

"Lunch?" I asked.

"Maybe," he replied.

It was hot, his perspiration flowed down his reddened face and fell from his chin to the parched world in fat droplets, but he was hungry enough to sit forward and hunch himself over his victim to examine it. A big hairy one, it was. Legs spreading out as wide as my palm and stretched fingers.

I watched as Slit flipped it over with his knife and an L shaped hex key from his pocket. He snapped off the fangs first, then so very carefully shaved off the fuzz from the fat backside of the spider with the edge of his blade, gently blowing to rid the irritating bristles from his prospective snack without touching it. Getting spider hair on your skin can make you itch, getting it in your mouth could be much worse. He even took care to shave the legs, too. The hair wasn't so much coming off cleanly though, not when it was sticking to his sweat as it dripped. He snorted and grumbled.

"Got anything to burn? Nothing smoky. Just- gonna have to singe the hair off." He muttered, scratching the back of his hand against his pants. Some tarantula fuzz must have gotten on him.

I cringed, uncertain as I dug around in my pockets for something that could be spared.

"Eh, might have some shit tickets, not much else, though." I offered, foisting over a handful of crumpled paper.

It was the kind you found fluttering about everywhere you go. Tattered, faded, and aged. It was the refuse of the old world and it never seemed to run out. You find a lot of it after storms blow over the abandoned cities. It's worthless outside of wiping your ass with it. I told him to twist it up tight so it would burn more slowly and give him a steady flame. He ground his teeth and said 'I know, I know'.

A few sparks from my flint got it going. The moment he felt he had toasted up the spider enough -when the hair was gone, the legs curled, and the twitching stopped- he jammed the flaming end of the twisted paper into the sand to smother it without letting off puffs of smoke which always come after extinguishing a flame with your breath. Best be careful so that we are not detected. I climbed up the stone to take a careful peek over. Didn't look like we'd drawn any attention. I was concerned that the smell of burning spider hair might have tipped them off, but no. A gunman was asleep on the job atop his sniper tower. A lower watchman was idly polishing a hubcap. They weren't being attentive. Noontime is lazy time. Thank the Goddess of Green for lazy Scrotus boys.

When I moved to settle back into the sand with Slit, I saw that he was tearing the charred spider in half. He held out his open palm to me, offering the fat backside of the tarantula, the juicy part. The gesture confused me, he's never shared anything smaller than a little bearded lizard when he's killed something himself. Bigger spoils could be spread around, but small treats weren't something he ever bothered to split.

"Slit, no. You eat it." I knew he was far hungrier than I was.

He shrugged, lips twisting in a way I couldn't decipher, then stuffed the juicy half of his catch into his face hole. He still nudged at me with the toe of his boot and held out a couple charred legs and the thorax. I tried waving him off but he just grunted more urgently as he chewed and pressed the critter bits toward my face until I took them. The crunch of the spider's outer flesh was pleasant, I always liked things that crunch.

We weren't fated to roast forever. Like a stone thrown high, the ball of fire in the sky only hovered at the height of its arc in the heavens for short time before it began to fall. Huddled in the growing shadow on the west side of our hiding place, we could finally laze away the rest of the daylight. We dozed for a while, half awake and half asleep. Ducky still enforced the rule that our wrists were to be tied, in case both of us slipped into dreams at the same time. The shadow rapidly became cool and after so much sweat was shed in the noon heat, we both shivered. My Pa's jacket became a small blanket that could only be shared if we were close as spoons, as was often the case. I had a few chaotic dreams, nothing particularly frightening, but worrying. I dreamt that Slit would have trouble making his way down the mountain under the cover of darkness, that his leg got stuck and we were forced to leave it behind. I woke once to reach back and check that he still had it, dragging his arm along with mine to feel that the girdle was still fastened to him. It was, to my relief. He didn't seem to be entirely asleep, his arm returned to its former place of its own volition. The sky was still a pale blue, it would be hours yet before we could leave so, I sought to close my eyes yet again.

The man behind me seemed uncomfortable, releasing something between a huff and a sigh as he shifted about. He was close, so much so that I could feel the pumping of his heart against my spine and every wiggle of his hips and he tried to get himself comfortable. I thought it was the cursed leg giving him fits as he was forced to wear it indefinitely until we left this place. Wouldn't want to be discovered under a circumstance where one of us couldn't stand on his own. I even began to turn myself to offer figuring out a different position to keep his half leg more comfortable but quickly realized it was not the leg causing him grief. He went still, I froze in place like frost on the surface of water in the cold winter morning.

A great suck of air hissed, and I didn't know if it was him or me. I could feel the problem, a rod of persistently angry flesh between us. It didn't have meaning before. Through our time up until this point, it was just a symptom of sleep, something all gentlefolk had to wake up to. I've woken up to it poking me before but had always made a joke of it. Now things were different, the way he locked up behind me said it all. This time his questing flesh wanted something real, tangible, something he'd touched with his hands once before. I thought about it, the days since we came home, how miserable it had been. How delight had transformed to fear so swift and sure that there had been no time to digest what had transpired on the journey home, and no space to repeat it. It had been so lovely, _he'd_ been lovely.

Perhaps on impulse, because it was easy, because I was tickled by his enthusiasm, I pressed myself to him and waited to see what he would do. I certainly did not have to wait long. The War Boy was never one to waste time. He rolled, dragging me along with him until he was able to lay on his right side, on his good leg, and grind himself against my rump. Ah, Slit was all hands, and I didn't want to be left out. Reaching back to grab a handful of his backside only seemed to be permission for his right hand to pick up my blouse and sink his fingers down the front of my trousers. The other hand was happy to venture up my chest under a layer of fabric while his mouth played and teased about at the back of my neck. The constant rolling and pressure of his lower body was something of a comfort, if it could be believed. It was soothing, somehow, because I knew him, because he was familiar and I liked his company, because I've known his body one way or another since the day I met him and he required care to survive. And he was being gentle, outside looking in you wouldn't know this, you would only see a body sprawled under another and subject to the will of the one on top. Slit was sparing me his full weight and his hands didn't squeeze with greed. It was plenty enough to have me move against him in return, even demand that he disrobed enough to touch and reward him for his mouth at the place where my hairline became scarred flesh.

This was the first time we'd been alone with nothing important to do since the journey home to my patch of Scavenger Country. A few days could feel like an eternity, especially when everything is on fire and the newly homeless local doctor has camped out in your garage. We would quickly end up pressed to the stony wall, facing the West. Sometimes we paused, breath held and listening to see if we had been discovered. We weren't. I had to stifle my own chuckling under a hand. I felt like a teenager again, entertaining a boy in strict secret. We were, however, not children on the cusp of adulthood. Were we adults left behind in a place not quite of childhood and not quite of adulthood. We were simply being forced to figure this shit out a decade too late.

Well, anyway, that was a fine nap.


	3. Exodus

**-Slit-**

If you haven't heard your own name in a while, I recommend hearing it half naked. I had heard it through her fingers, she'd tried to muffle it and failed but I'd heard it, _my_ name. And nowhere else had it sounded so chrome. The nut now slept sound and deep. She slept like that last time too, on her side with her curled arm under her head and a thick line of spittle running out from the corner of her lip. She probably wouldn't have a disturbance, if this was indeed like the last time in the car, so it seemed safe enough to let her dream. We had to pull up our trousers and cinch up our belts, unfortunately. Couldn't lay around buck-ass nude this close to an installment of Scrotus Pukes. I might have given in to the desire to drift off, but every so once in a while I could hear them over there and it, thankfully, kept me awake and alert.

This probably wasn't supposed to happen, it just _did_. I really used to hate her freaking guts. She was and is overbearing, temperamental, obsessive, irritating, stubborn, and hopelessly chipper about the darkest shit... But she was also tolerant, durable, determined, observant, praising and finally, she was forgiving. She's a fool. A long time ago I could have easily rewarded her forgiveness by taking my chances, bludgeoning her in the head, and stealing her bike to go out and die like a proper War Boy. I didn't, I was too afraid to fail again, later became resigned to everything, and then failed to drag myself out of the meaningless fog of that despair until after she almost got her head blown off by the lightning. Things hadn't been at their worst directly before that, but it hadn't been good either. I existed, did the absolute minimum of what she required me to do, and in turn demanded her hands to stop myself from dwelling on the ruin of my life and the gates which were surely closed to me for good. I used to think about little else aside from eat, shit, work on the car, shine hand, sleep. That's all there had been for me and I was too much of a coward to eat a bullet. Now, I thought about tomorrows and next weeks and things that felt so far away and too close at once. I thought about my half life, her full life, and how long the two would overlap. There were other things to think about too, the new, fun things. My head felt stuffed full enough to crack open like a ripe bird egg. At least, for the moment, I could think about nothing else but how much I liked my hand spread over the curve of her hip. She looked shine, even when her mouth was hanging wide open and drooling.

I hate visual perfection for the sake of aesthetic. A rusted mallet gets the job done if the goal is to smash lizards. You can take the rust off in a chemical bath, polish it up, make it pretty, but if you doll it up just to have a perfect hammer, what the fuck are you doing? If something is too pretty to be useful, then what use is it? Something good doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to work. That logic probably has something to do with the thing that looks back at me in the rear-view glass. Nothing about me is good to look at, but I look at Dune and she looks at me. We're not a couple polished show hammers, that's for damn sure, but I think we both liked what we saw. I liked it when her eyebrows rose up and the maul of razors turned into that big opened mouthed smile formed around a laugh.

When dusk came, I had to wake her. She whimpered and bitched, I held a hand over her mouth and suffered the guilt for it but when she was aware enough not to be noisy about it, she scratched my hand away and got to her feet. There was a badly suppressed moan, sounded like pain.

"What's your problem?" I know it came off my tongue sounding ugly. Didn't necessarily mean it that way and found myself biting the unruly appendage that had produced those rusted words.

She muttered under her breath, cursed her redheaded harpy friend for some reason, and began to undo her belt. I felt my teeth clench and threaten to pinch scar tissue. We didn't have time for this. We had a tiny-ass window of time when the last phantom glows of the sun just below the horizon gave us enough light to see what we were doing but probably not enough light to be noticed at a distance. With her belt undone, she pulled out the waistband of her pants and hunched a bit to look down into her grundies with yet another curse and a twisting of her upper lip.

What the hell? What was going on in her pants to get a reaction like that? The fun we'd had was messy, pretty sure it's supposed to be, and she should expect that since it was that way last time, too. I tried having a look, thinking something was going on that shouldn't be, but the second I leaned forward she pulled back her waistband in one hand while the shine hand slapped over my face and shoved me away.

"Gah! Get your eyeballs outta my business, nosy bastard!" she snarled as I stumbled back to catch myself with hands thrown back against stone.

I didn't expect that kind of reaction. So, I still didn't understand what went on in her head. We could fondle each other all over with our bare asses in the wind, but taking a look down her britches was a step too far? I didn't get it.

"What's the matter with your junk?" I questioned, a moment afterward wondering if whatever was going on with her was my fault.

She was digging around in her pockets and the pouches stitched to her trousers. Out into her hand came a tightly wound roll of cloth, the same as the kind she used to wrap me up with when my skin was raw with blisters and burns.

"Turn around." she said, then demanded almost in a plea which stank of embarrassment. " _Turn around._ Don't _look_."

My brows quirked, but I did as I was told, if for no other reason then the novelty of seeing something smacking of humiliation on the shameless woman's face for the first time.

"You... Uh. You okay?"

"Yes." she fairly swore the word.

"You sure?" I tried again to be certain.

"Yes. I'm fine." she muttered that one in the first person, which usually meant she was _not_ fine. I heard her clothes rustling. Was she bandaging herself somewhere?

"Are you bleeding?" It was hand thrown thrown out into the dark as far as questions go. It just popped into my head. What else would you use a bandage for?

"Wha'did ya just say?" she croaked.

I heard her zipper pulled back up and took that as being allowed to turn to look at her. She was glaring into my eyes when I turned, waiting for me to repeat myself as she pulled her belt tight and buckled back up.

I cringed at the question I had asked, becoming aware that if she was bandaging a part of herself that had to do with grundies, then it meant there were only a few places she could be bleeding from. I felt my own blood running out of my head and pooling around my guts. I simultaneously felt ill, like I had to piss, and like there wasn't enough red stuff in my skull. And why would _that_ be bleeding? Unless I did something to it when-

"Hey, Ducky? Oh, oh! Sit down."

I couldn't tell how loud her voice was. It sounded far away. So, I uttered a "Shhh" to be sure as she pushed at me till I found a wall of stone and slid down it only to try pulling myself back up and clutching at her pant leg while my vision started getting dark around the edges like a tunnel.

"I'm sorry... I- shit! I'm sorry!" that makes exactly four times I've ever said that to her and meant it. Fuck, it was well earned if it was for wrecking her _there_.

I was being shushed then as she pushed down on my shoulders with her palms, maybe to keep me seated.

"What are- for what, Ducky?" she asked, grabbing at my head to force me to look at her.

I have absolutely no idea what I babbled at her in some kind of dizzied panic, but she'd nodded and thankfully didn't let me go on too long, before panic could become self loathing at what I thought I'd done to her.

"My good green goddess. You really are just a poor boy in a man suit. Aren't you?" she spoke as if somebody had just sucked all of the inappropriate happiness right out of her. Made me feel guilty, but it also reminded me of something Phil said once. 'I was a thirty six year old boy' he'd told me while I was off my face, drunk.

"It's normal." she added to her ruthlessly stinging words about me. I didn't have it in me to feel too lousy about her accusing me of being a pup, I was still stuck on how badly I thought I had screwed her up.

"Bleeding out your breeder bits?!"

"Don't say the B-word, Slit." she growled through her gnashing teeth and continued. "And, yes. Normal. Every month, normal"

"Every... Month, normal?" I repeated after her dumbly. _Hell week_. It had to do with hell week.

She only sighed at me and sat down herself as I recovered from that revelation. I didn't somehow wreck her innards, good, but bleeding from a place like that doesn't sound great either. Pieces started clicking together in my head as if it had all needed another part to fit together the whole ordeal of hell week. Made sense that blood accompanies the pain Dune obviously dealt with around this time. I'd also figured out that all women did this. Ardith was definitely even less pleasant on a schedule, just like Dune, and when I asked Crank about it he laughed in my face and practically chirped a curt 'yep' without bothering to elaborate on why. _Why_ was the only part that was missing from this picture, so that was the next word out of my pathetic face. I had narrowly avoided literally fainting at the idea of blood in Dune's drawers that I might have caused. Humiliating. She sighed at me again.

"You know what, Slit? I think the less you know, the happier you'll be right now." she said, and for the moment, I agreed.

I recovered from this. I could accept that this happens. I tried not to examine it too much. Probably for the best. Dune didn't seem to be willing to answer any more questions about it at the moment. We lost the faint light of dusk over this, which made the climb down treacherous and nearly impossible. It was a mess, dozens of near slips and if we hadn't been heard sending down small cascades of crumbling rock, then those Scrotus Boys must be as deaf as we were. To V8, I prayed we hadn't been seen.

I forgot about Dune's personal hell. I was thinking about the nearby danger which was armed to their snaggled teeth. Scrotus Boys tend to take a very dim view on the world. In their minds, anything they set eyes on belonged to their warlord, who was years dead even before the road war which changed everything. Scrotus has seemingly risen from death's grip before, though, so it was no wonder they still regarded him in high esteem. I too had admired the war stories of Scabrous as told by Scrotus Boys, even if I'd often wanted to bloody the lips those words were chundered from. I'd also gotten the impression that Scrotus Boys feared their leader as much as loved him. Maybe they feared the possibility of his return from death, so remained loyal. Thinking about that kind of peril kept my skull meat off of the very immediate danger of falling down a mountain and breaking my V8 damned neck. I'd say that I couldn't reach the bottom soon enough but, any sooner and it would have been because I rolled down the rest of the way. It wasn't overly comfortable to walk on the shale and rocky rubble, but at least it meant we were pretty close to the foot of the mountain. One last drop off before somewhat level ground. I couldn't find it in myself to make commentary on the fact that Dune reached out and found two handfuls of my ass while trying to, I guess, find me and make sure I didn't just fall on top of her on my way down.

Now, the walking. It wasn't a big deal next to climbing down the mountain, but I was kind of glad it was probably too dark for Dune to watch me limp around on the screaming stump. It felt like the thing had grown teeth and started chewing on itself. We were keeping close and bumping shoulders to make sure we don't get separated in the dark. There was some moonlight, enough to see some of that silver light reflecting around the top edges of stones but not enough to avoid tripping over your own feet on uneven ground. The last five minutes of the hike was the worst. Wherever I go, the last hundred yards of any given walk makes me want to chew glass. I couldn't wait to not be walking, for that matter I couldn't wait to pull off the damn leg and maybe dunk the whole stub in cold aqua-cola. Dune grumbled every step of the way and a few times stopped, and bent forward to grind her palms into her lower back. I should have expected Hell Week to start at any minute and with a bang. She was doing that the whole way up the mountain that morning too, the headache and the real nasty attitude couldn't be too far behind. We were both so eager to get to the bike and out of here that we didn't bother to be too quiet as we closed in on where we'd stashed it, we also didn't notice the faint but warm light of a camping lamp which belonged to neither of us as we rounded the rocky rubble behind which the bike was parked. We both froze, and the silhouette of a man in front of our ride froze too. Dune was quick as can be, she'd fallen into stance and lifted her lead-spitter faster than I could undo the strap holding my own piece secure in its holster. Dune didn't fire, wisely, the stranger was standing in front of the bike and holding up a spark torch to blind us. If she fired and missed, she could put a hole in the gas tank.

"HOLD IT!" We heard the man bark out through his clenched teeth. He was holding a firearm, maybe a Glock, I couldn't be sure. The bright light of a spark torch with working batteries made the cataracts in my right eye glow and flare with blurred orbs of burning white.

Dune seemed to realize first that we had the technical upper hand. She's thinking more like a War Boy every day, or I was thinking more like a Scav than I ever realized.

"Can't kill us both before you taste lead! Drop it!" Dune tried bleak reasoning. This was a standoff, two guns against one, if he blew one of us away, he'd still be shot before he could take aim at the second. No, I didn't want that to happen, one of us getting blown to the next realm, but truth was truth, this fucker would die if he discharged that weapon.

The sound of a bolt pulling back and sliding forward to move a bullet into a chamber stopped Dune from making any further demands, it wasn't her rifle, that sound came from behind us. The man ahead lowered his spark torch, revealing his smirking face to us. After a few Blinks, I saw white skin and smokey colored war paint around his eye sockets. He grinned at us savagely.

"Don't ya fuckin' move, Wretches!" called a second voice as I felt the barrel of a sniper's ruthless killing utensil pressed to my spine. I had no choice but to lift my arms and drop the Colt.

"OFF him." The War Boy behind me commanded Dune.

She was gentler about how she lowered her cherished weapon to the ground. They didn't care how she felt about the object, the man with a scoped rifle of his own circled around us and kicked it harshly toward the bike and out of her reach before picking up my revolver from the dirt and tucking it into his belt. A flicker of anger rose in my chest, that was _mine_.

The Boy by the bike approached now that we were held at the barrel of a long-shot. He put away his firearm for the moment to search us, starting, of course, with the woman. Why wouldn't he? War Boys seldom encounter women to begin with, so all that I could do was look on while some stranger put his hands all over the scav for the sake of the novelty. He found her emergency arm, a Beretta, and tucked that into his pocket, then further up her leg he found her knife, which he tossed that toward his mate's boots. The gunman nudged it a little further from us.

Dune sucked in a choked breath, which pulled my attention back to her. I found her standing stiffly with her arms over her head as the scum kneaded his way up her inner thighs, slowly, seemingly savoring the action and feel of it. Her teeth were bared as she sucked in ragged breaths and I could see her eyes darting all about under the dim light of the camping lamp. I twitched, leaning closer and leering a glare that could burn flesh unto the top of the naked head of this Scrotus grunt, but I heard the gunman shift his weight and only just restrained myself from moving. If I moved, he'd shoot. Images ran wild through my head, _foul_ ones. A terror roared inside me. What if they did something to her right in front of me? I could only stand by and watch what happened. Shit. _Shit_.

This wasn't just some pat-down, this depraved fuck was groping around her hips for feel of ass and finally, as his hands slid over her belly and his thumb hooked under her tit, her fist flew down and boxed hard against his ear. Reaction is half instinct, any brawler will tell you that. I jerked toward them, wanting to drop kick this prick right in the mouth with the foot of the metal leg and get him off her but I felt the cool barrel tip of the Gunman's long-shot prod harshly against the back of my skull. Self preservation is instinct too. I froze a second time. I didn't want to die, _holy shit_ , I didn't want to die. The Scrotus Boy had instantly grabbed Dune's wrist, twisted her arm around her back and damn near thrown her at the ground with his filthy fingers gripped tightly in her hair. A noise crawled out of me, something hissed through teeth and akin to the sound of an animal that did not like being cornered. Dune picked herself up after being ordered to stand. At least now, the little shit left her be. It was my turn to be searched, but I was watching Dune the whole time, trying to peer through the darkness at her face to see if she was okay. She just stood there, trembling with her arms at her sides. Not right, all shook up.

My blender wrenches were taken, stored away in the cargos of the man digging around in my pockets. Another blade, the one which often hung from the left side of my belt, was chucked at the feet of the gunner the same as Dune's knife. The little pervert almost gasped as my gauntlet came away from my arm and into his hands. The two argued around us over it while my hate burned hotter. In that moment, nothing could have pleased or satisfied me more than killing the both of them, carefully, in the ways only War Boys fear to die. My jaw was flexing so hard my molars twinged and ached.

"Aw, _shine!_ "

"Ey! Who the hell says YOU get that?!"

"HEY! You already got the magnum! You can do with the sharps and the hand-cannon , I get THIS beaut!"

"If I didn't grab that when I could you'da taken that too, dong breath."

"Fast hands get the good shit."

He backed off once he was done with me. I couldn't reach him and if it weren't for the gun trained on my skull, I might have risked a swipe at him. Out came the Glock again, pointed toward HER instead of me. I was in his head, I've _been_ him before, in his position, weaseling out the weaknesses of others. Without a rifle in her hands, Dune wasn't the big threat here; I was. It had been easy to overpower her, a much bigger bloke like me might not be easy at all and reacting like I had when he had his hands on her told him all that he needed to know. Threatening her would serve better to keep me compliant, and it burned to know that assumption was correct.

Dune's Beretta appeared in his left hand, pulled from his belt. He pressed the barrel flush to the gas tank of the bike. If he put a hole in that, there's no leaving here. Leaking guzz all over a hot motor and splashing back on the exhaust? That's a fire waiting to happen if there's any guzz left to speak of. He nodded his head at the gunman, who gathered the blades he got out of this before turning to start the dash for The Canyon to get others.

"Gonna ride your strappin' arse in for questioning. Been hoppin' mad around these parts all week. Boss wants to know whats up. After that... Hmph. Yir maggot food, Mate." The man left behind sneered at us. Dune seemed to shrink at that.

"Why the fuck would we say shit if you're just gonna kill us anyway, fuck you." I snapped back at him. Really, how dumb did he think I was? Even if it could benefit me, I'd refuse to talk out of spite.

"Boss cn' sway ya, very persuasive, he is..." He said with utter conviction, but paused and tilted his head with a half disbelieving smile. "Hey, do I know your ugly face from somewhere?"

"Fuck if I know." I declared, because why would I remember some painfully average face painted white and black out of more than two or three hundred I'd seen in my half-life? I didn't give a shit who he was or if we'd ever met, I was busy trying to figure out how to get out of this without getting us shot at. Dune was shuffling awkwardly next to me, I could hear that more than see it at my right, and reflexively leaned closer.

"Heh, Wait, YEAH! You're that Citadel tosser that almost knocked Fast Lenny's head off! Can't forget a face like that!"

Well, I _was_ recognizable for obvious reasons. Dune moved to take a step ahead of me as she started talking, my hand gripped the back of her vest, just in case this shit-stick decided to get trigger happy. Didn't want the nutter getting too close.

"Yeah, yir both War Boys. Brothers, right? Maybe we ca-"

"Shut yir holes, Breeder! Nobody asked what you thought! An' I ain't a brother to blasphemers!" He cut her off and his crowing hit my ears like screeching tires.

Damn her optimism. Can't blame her for trying to appeal to what could have been some kinship had this been a boy from the Citadel. We both shut up and I ground my teeth so strongly that I tasted copper, fucker. Sure, I'd let that word slip earlier, but I didn't _call_ her a breeder. I'd begun to sweat despite the cold and my bloodpump was hammering so hard that my entire corpus felt like it was pulsating. _There's no way out of this, is there? Gotta think. Do something. Anything._ I was considering the idea of maneuvering Dune behind me, maybe I could take a bullet and distract this bastard long enough for Dune to get on the bike and bolt. No, she'd probably refuse. She was stubborn like that and I wasn't willing to die for absolutely nothing. The shit was laughing at us, so V8-damned loud that I was beginning to worry that someone else out here might hear it; Storm Chasers, for example.

"Wonder how much them Citadel softies will pay to get back a scum-bucket like you? Probably not much, damaged goods ya know, but the girl... Nah, Boss'll fancy that booty for 'imself. Likes um fighty." he predicted, and if snakes could talk, they'd sound just like him.

My blood ran cold for a moment as I looked at Dune. She looked dazed, a blankness washed over her face which made her look disturbingly sane. She had that 'I'm not really here' look. Damn. Fuck. _FUCK!_ When were we gonna catch a fucking break?! Everything just kept spiraling further out of fucking control and I couldn't do anything about it. The storm, rust luck! The trip to Green Place, fucked! Scav Country, boned! Now this!

 _So this is what I survived the road war for? To get offed by something resembling one of my own kind and watch the Scav get hauled off and turned into some thong wearing wanker's plaything. Fuck V8. Fuck everything!_

My fists clenched, nails biting into my palms to leave half moon cuts. I could see my breath billowing in great misty clouds on the frigid night air as I stood there, fuming. Now, I could even feel my pulse in my eyeballs while I observed the smug face stretching the weak jaw on the slimy little creature in front of us. My blood didn't cool as minutes passed. I could do nothing but steam like a hot engine running with a cracked radiator.

The moron was beginning to relax, casually leaning back against the bike and getting lazy about his grip on his gun. It was taking a while for his mate to get back, which wasn't a big shocker. It's a half hour walk to The Canyon. He'd return quicker, no doubt with a vehicle at his disposal and men to properly shackle and restrain their new captives. He hadn't let his arm and the weapon in it sag much but his eyes were wandering over the motorcycle so, his aim had drifted just slightly to the right of Dune instead of squarely on her chest. She must have come out of her stupor and noticed that, too. She squatted down for a moment without him noticing and it was so quick, soundless, and fluid that I barely noticed the movement myself. I wondered just what that was for, what she was doing. Meanwhile, he was scraping the barrel of the Beretta at some rust on the handle bars and muttering to himself, surely listening to us still, but good and oblivious for a what might only be a few precious seconds. Dune and I exchanged a look and she mouthed two words at me, then again when I didn't so much catch what she meant. _On three._ It made sense after I saw a good sized stone in her hand, about the size of her fist. This was insane, incredibly stupid. We were going to get fucking shot, but I knew what she was going to do and nodded. We didn't have many options left outside the schemes of the terminally stupid.

I counted to three in my head and on cue heard the air whipping around her swinging arm as she flung the stone with everything she had. The rock struck hard just behind the Scrotus Boy's right ear and he nearly knocked over the bike by falling into it, but a bang still rattled my good ear. Dune yelped, but the bullet missed me, I was sure of that as I lurched forward. I hadn't been so kamicrazy since the road war, this didn't even compare to the time Dune and I almost murdered each other. I didn't just want him dead, I wanted to cave his skull in and beat the corpse till my knuckles looked like ground up meat. The bike got knocked over this time under the combined weight of two. I'd find out later that we'd snapped the rusted foot peg off.

We hit the dirt, crashing down atop the bike and grappling. He still had a gun in each hand and that needed to change quick if we wanted to live. He tried to stretch himself out and twisted his wrists around in my grip in an attempt to break free. The struggle had his fingers curling involuntarily around the triggers and twice more lead flew. Our arms were spread high over our heads as we rolled away from the toppled motorcycle, looking like birds dueling in the dirt. I couldn't let him turn his wrists and fire again. Couldn't pull away too far either. I had to keep my head ducked low against his shoulder and try not to let go while he drove his knee into my gut again and again on the left side. I couldn't do anything about it, not with the metal leg locked straight behind me.

Dune joined the fight, half falling into me and both her hands falling over my own to hold down our captor's right arm. I heard the screaming and another shot go off. My ear rang. When I turned my head to look, Dune had the Glock and there was a chunk of skin missing from his forearm. Dark flows streamed from the bite she dealt him. Yes! She held the gun and had pressed it to his temple as he thrashed under me. She squeezed the trigger. _Click._ Nothing. He spat in my eyes, but now I had both hands around his left wrist to pry Dune's Beretta from his hand.

 **-Dune-**

Empty on two shots! What kind of moron feeds his weapon so poorly!? It didn't occur to me that these men might not have been well supplied with ammo. I chucked the useless thing and scuttled on my hands and knees for Mama's rifle. I should have gone for that first, but Duck had been so close to getting blown away that I couldn't just stand by and let it happen. I lifted her, fed a round into the chamber and ran back to try angling myself over Duck's shoulder so that I wouldn't shoot him by mistake. I saw the eyes on the War Boy bulge as he looked up to find my nasty barrel pointed at his face. _Mistfire_. Shit! They rolled again, this time away from me because Slit had gotten him separated from my backup armament and he wanted it back. He was straddling Ducky now, a bloody hand clawed around Slit's throat while they fought with their remaining hands for the gun which lay on the dirt by his head.

I knew what had happened, the magazine had come loose when it had been kicked like a piece of trash. I turned to point the weapon away from them, afraid I could be wrong as I turned up the weapon to be sure. It was gone, the magazine, but there should STILL have been one in the chamber now that I think about it. Did I pull back the bolt or not when we discovered we were not alone? I was too frantic to remember as I dropped my dutiful killing tool and scrambled through the dirt. No time to find the missing magazine. Slit would be turning blue by now. I didn't quite get a hold of my backup, my clumsy scarred digits just bounced it further from the pair and into darkness. OH! Someone had a fist full of my hair!

This man was not so thick as Slit, but he was taller so had a longer reach. He could grind my face into the dirt and keep on exchanging blows with Slit, no problem. He shouldn't be this strong, no one should. He must have been high on adrenaline, or maybe something else. I heard a fleshy thwack, then I was free. I turned to look, and both Slit and the War Boy were gagging and gasping for air, but Slit didn't take so long to recover, he jammed his hand onto the knob of his peg-leg, then dove over the body of the man retching on his knees and elbows. I'd never seen anything like it, I imagined, this was what it was like to watch dogs fight, something I've only heard stories about from elders. Slit had his right arm around the other's straining neck, a knee in his lower back. The man shrieked, and Slit jerked upright so fast, so harshly, twisting the others body in the motion so that _something_ just under the skull was severed forever in a wet crunch.

I've seen Slit kill, but not like this. We've been in situations and we've both taken our lumps, we've even exchanged bullets with other scavs, but he'd always hidden any worry under a mask of casual amusement at the excitement of danger. This time, as he knelt over the body, he looked down at it with a dark arousal in his eyes. He was admiring his work, or maybe pleased in a deeper way that the Scrotus Boy was dead under him. He panted as he looked at me, still all fight, surely. He wasn't looking at my face and he came at me too quickly for the fright of his wicked expression to have left my mind. I flinched away, but he had grabbed my right arm around the bicep so that there was no escape. My eyes followed his, finding a thick line of raw flesh over the mound of my right shoulder and red dribbling from it. _Oh my._ I only felt it when my eyes took in the sight. I was loaded with the fight-juice and too keyed up to feel anything until it was pointed out to me.

"Just a graze." He gruffed, then started pawing at my left leg to unwind the strips of cloth I used to hold my pant legs neat over the calf.

The other one could be back soon, I tried to listen for engines but frustratingly I couldn't seem to tell if I was hearing anything or not. "We need to _go_ , Ducky."

"I know," was all he said as he tightened the makeshift bandage around my arm.

The colt, my trusty knife, and one of Slit's blades were gone, no getting those back, but we got gathered what was left, hastily put our remaining belongings back in their proper places. Slit didn't bother going through the dead man's pockets, he simply undid his boots and belts, slid his pants off him and rolled them up to stuff into the saddle bags on the bike, which I now had to hold upright while he looted. We lost some shit, but gained a firearm and whatever goodies might have been hidden in those pants. Slit rightfully claimed the Glock. It didn't replace what was lost, but it was a substitute for now. I found myself shaking when we finally seated ourselves on the bike and hoped that it would start up even though it had been knocked around too. It fired right up like a faithful servant to us, and I told Ducky to take a longer route back, one which usually had so much traffic that our tracks would be hard to discern from the rest.

He still huffed and growled the whole way and I think he was sweating. His back was cold and damp against my cheek. How'd he manage to leak body coolant through two layers of shirts and leather? Worryingly, he was shifting about in front of me, maybe turning his head for some reason, and urged that old motor harder. He ran her as fast as she could possibly sprint down these dusty roads in the darkness. I spent much of the ride wondering if we were being tailed, but unwilling to look back and find out.

Getting home was surreal. Wilson was already down in the garage chamber and raising up hell, scolding Slit, making quite a racket over the red stained bandage over my shoulder. I didn't respond, couldn't seem to fire back at the ancient medicine man, and the moment we were both dismounted from the bike, Slit had his arms around me and had crushed me to his chest. He didn't say anything, didn't explain this oddness, but that was okay. I didn't need or want that explanation, I wanted to be held. What just happened, and what _could_ have happened, it had hit with all its might right then. The sticky wetness at Slit's back hadn't been him sweating through his shirts and leather vest, I'd been weeping and whimpering the whole way home. He'd heard the sobs over the roar of the engine. That's why he'd stepped on the gas, pushing the old bike to its absolute limit to get me home.

"Christ, what happened?!" that was Wilson, being rightfully upset and furious about what he was seeing, the result of our foolishness. We should never have gone to see who ruled The Canyon.

I had tightly clenched fists full of the former War Boy's shirt and I must have sobbed some more, possibly retreated so far into my mad mind that I wasn't aware of what was happening for a long while. Events of that early morning seem to leap about in my memory in a haphazard pattern. I vaguely remember Wilson cleaning out the wound from the tickle of a speeding chunk of lead. It hurt, but no more than anything else is this dying world. Slit was there, I had been sitting between his bent knees and leaned into him while the old man messed with the wound. It probably didn't need the three stitches I found in it later, on watch.

It wasn't me watching out, it was Slit, but I happened to be there with him. It was another moment where reality seemed to roll forward unexpectedly. He wasn't using the fold out chair and I was leaning against his shoulder as we both sat on bare rock, lazily watching the sun rising.

I was thinking about the slaver caravan Mum and I were with, where I had been told I was going, that I was to be a wife to a warlord, and knowing what that inherently meant was going to happen to me. It almost happened again. Almost. I should probably have lied, told him ol' Dune was just fine, but I didn't want to talk about it. What's there to talk about outside the obvious? We both knew what had been implied by what the now dead Scrotus Boy had said. I'd have probably watched Slit be murdered, then been kept alive for the personal entertainment of a stranger. History had tried to repeat itself. I wonder how Mum would feel and what she'd have to say. Her efforts to do away with my lovely smile apparently meant nothing to some men, they'd still try their luck and take what they want by force if I refused. I wondered if Ducky would have been like that too, were it not for the trauma in his terrible childhood. I wanted Mumsy, to see her, speak to her lovely face. She was always lovely even after she dried out. She wasn't there. I took her home to Pa. I hadn't been back to that corner of my old home because there was nothing left to visit.

Couldn't talk to Slit about this, he'd just started relaxing himself, but I didn't want to be alone either. Our rocky ledge was murder on my hip as I pushed my head under his arm, used his thigh for my pillow and lay on my side. He didn't complain about getting a taste of his own medicine, but he did have something to say.

"I don't like it when you go blank like that." He grumbled quietly.

I felt my lips twist at that. He must be referring to what I was like after I'd peeled myself off the seat of the bike after we got home.

"You think Dune likes doing that?"

We said nothing more about it for a short time, and I very nearly fell asleep. A thick hand squeezing my forearm roused me.

"...you can't do that when we leave here. If you go head-empty out there, you'll wind up dead."

"I know," that was all I could say. I wasn't stupid, I knew what could happen if I had one of those moments at the wrong time.

I rested there for a while, until the sun had risen high enough to glare at us. My head was aching furiously. Couldn't stand the damn light and to make matters worse, I had to both deal with the curse of womanhood and be on watch soon. I rose up to leave, frankly hoping that I hadn't bled though my damn slacks at any point in the last five or six hours.

"Need to tend the maggot farm, get a few things sorted. Then I'll take over here, Slit." I told him, expecting a nod and a grunt to confirm that he'd heard me. He shook his head instead.

"No, you're wrecked. Sleep it off." he grouched as per custom. I detected pity, or maybe concern mixed into the texture of his voice.

"I'm fine _now_ ," I asserted.

"Yeah well, I'm not necessarily talking about _that_. In case you haven't noticed, Nutter, you have the personality of an adder around this time, so _sleep_."

Well, that was coarsely considerate in a Slit kinda way.

"Oh, right," I agreed.

"Yeah," Slit grunted while scrubbing at the creases in his forehead with his fingertips. That must be fatigue creeping up, or anxiety. He'd been jumpy lately.

"Thanks, mate."

"Sure."

And that was the end of that. First thing, I washed my hands and face, then attended to the most urgent matter, changing out grundies and bandages, then scrubbing through what I'd had to stuff down my pants up on a mountain. I remembered the way Slit seemed to panic at finding out all about this cursed time. Poor thing. I never truly wanted to explain the nitty gritty details this to him. Before all the business of getting chummy with each other's _business_ happened, which I never really suspected could happen to us to start with, I had been keen to keep him focused on figuring out basic human manners. Too bad now, cat's outta the bag. Well, he knows it's not his fault, there's that.

Maggot farm. Next on the agenda was good grub for the journey ahead. It was easy and a fine distraction. A little fire and some salt, they were cooked up well done and ready to be stored away. I brought Slit a bowl, he tucked right in with a thankful groan, hungry as he was.

I later thought about the potatoes I had tried growing. All I ever got out of them were thin yellow shoots and putrid smells. Wilson had better luck and sometimes we got a few potatoes outta him in trade. They were descendants of the ones I found in sacks when I won the Impala in a trip to shoot-n-loot many moons back. Sometimes I tried to grow a bumpity lump or two traded from the Doc in some old worthless tires, but I could never manage to get them beyond the sprouting stage and the leaves would never seem to brighten up and form completely. Maybe the dirt I was trying to use was too deficient, maybe it was toxic. I hoped the former, or else I was probably cooking up a whopping case of cancers from living out here. Now those spuds were surely dead. No one to water them in months. I dug around to see for sure but found nothing but shriveled husks and rotten juices where growing things should be. I sat by my failed cultivations and thought about why Ducky and Wilson would now be on the lookout. We haven't heard the sounds of war in more than a day, the massacre at the refinery seemed to have been the final battle. Scav country was gripped by an otherworldly silence. No passing hum of motors going by the territory, no distant gunshots, only a whole lot of uncharacteristic nothing. War Boys was what we should be watching for after what happened, they'd have certainly found their dead and naked comrade by now.

I gave up on being productive after that. I took my Ducky's advice and curled up on sleep mats I had dragged into the car. I wanted to be alone, but not too far from the others. My dreams were nothing but nonsense broken up by the sneering face of the War Boy who'd had his hands where he shouldn't have. I kept half waking, if only to open my peepers and confirm that I was enveloped in the safety of Shirley. The final time I woke that afternoon, it was to Slit settling in behind me. I phased back into my dreams, but this time my sour skull meat was happily occupied by imagery of Slit stuffing a roasted spider into his gob. What a lovely image.

 **-Slit-**

 _This road is long, but not so long as going all the way around the range, and three times I've been on it. I always seemed to end up making the drive at night, seemed safer in shadow, but darkness only means you can't see a threat until it's on top of you._

 _The headlamps sent steaks of yellow skittering over the crackles and deep potholes of the worn asphalt. I think this might be the last surviving old road of the region._

 _I could hear sobs, the sniveling whimpers and wails of a pup. Aw fuck,_ This _fucking dream. For a while it had been a reoccurring nightmare after my first trip away to find out what happened to home. It eventually receded like a breaking fever and I didn't suffer its effect anymore, but it says something of any dream that you know what's going to happen in it, and once terror takes hold in a dream, there doesn't seem to be a way to avoid encountering the very thing that makes it a nightmare._

 _Usually I was alone on this road, but for reasons you could probably guess, Dune was with me this time. She heard the cries too._

 _"What's that?" she questioned as she leaned forward in her seat with a hand braced on the dash. "That sounds like a lil' sprout, Ducky."_

 _"Veeight, stay in the car, Dune. Don't get out. Ain't jus' some pup."_

 _"How d'ya mean?"_

 _Just as I tried to reason my way to a late explanation of this road through hell, the headlights shined on what I hoped I wouldn't see._

 _He couldn't be much more than one thousand days old, and there he was, waddling around, alone, in the middle of the road. He had his back turned to the car, still screaming and hiccuping and clawing out at the darkness ahead of him with unnaturally thin hands for such a young pup._

 _A layer of filth and a halo of dirt brown tangles to match the protruding bones of his naked body did not make me sympathetic. This was bait, nothing more._

 _"Holy seeds."_

 _That was all I heard before Dune threw the passenger door open. Diving across the seat to throw my arms around her waist didn't stop her, she seemed to flow out of my grip like loose sand._

 _"DUNE! STOP! DON'T!" Shrieking at her didn't do anything either._

 _Too petrified to leave the car, too cowardly, I rose from a sprawl across the seat to see what was happening. Of course, Dune was on her knees, reaching out to the little monster. She didn't know, she couldn't know, because I never told her, and I never told her because I never wanted to admit what happened out here before I knew the dangers myself. I didn't want to admit how soft and stupid I really was._

 _The pup turned, and he had no face. No eyes, no nose, no brow, only a mouth full of blunt teeth splitting his skull so wide that Dune lost her whole hand to him. Her screaming got me out of the car, but it was too late. More sets of teeth sprung out of the pitch black, sinking in, devouring everything...  
_  
A cold sweat was what I woke to. Cold because it was now night and the residual heat of the day was leeched off into the winter evening. First thing I did was check Dune, even though I was well aware I'd just woken from a simple nightmare. She was intact, snoring, blissfully unaware. Next, I just lazed there with my face at the back of her head to keep reminding myself it was just a dream. A dream that could soon become reality. So, the little demons wouldn't truly look as they had in the dream, they would have faces like any other pups, but they would be feral, opportunistic feeders who don't much care how their meals are acquired. It was the fact that the looming danger came in the form of a hoard of cannibalistic children which made my guts churn. I'm chrome as fuck, I'll snap your head right off if you so much as look at me wrong. Man or woman, I don't give a shit, but pups? Even I have a line I won't cross. I hate that fucking road, but it was better than getting sniped or blown to bloody chunks in the tight Canyon. No way we could cross there now that the Scrotus Boy with the rifle would recognize us.

I got up, knowing Wilson would soon be down to pester me awake to take my turn anyway. I relieved him, but he returned after only a few minutes with open can of that revolting old world grub to pass my way, and then he sat. I was suspicious of why he'd choose to forego sleep to linger here. I rightfully had no doubt that he'd start chewing my ear off with his chattering.

"So, you feelin' alright about this road trip?" he was just making small talk, so I merely shrugged as I passed a glob of whatever this lumpy brown shit was between my teeth.

"Hmm, outta curiosity, you an Dune tryin' for a baby?" he said, and I inhaled a bite of that brown sludge.

After this came hacking and retching near to the point of chundering while holding that can away. Even if it tasted like crap, I didn't want to vomit into my dinner.

"NO!" I said, hoarsely. "What the shitting-hell makes you THINK that?!"

"Well, to start with, yir both covered in hickies an' love bites and I've never seen THAT on either of you before so I'm ASSUMING that ya been knockin' boots." he reasoned accurately.

I hadn't even thought about the bruises on my neck or the ones on Dune. I fought off the urge to just kick the decrepit bastard off the ledge.

"It's none of your damn business, Old Man! Get outta my face before I kick yours in!" I snarled, shoving the can back at him. I don't know why, but him cornering me to talk about this pissed me off. A much younger me might even brag about getting a breeder on my thunderstick, if he could get around the consequences of doing such a thing in the first place. Wilson rolled his eyes at my threat. He knew it was a bluff, knew he was too valuable to damage.

"Matter of fact, since you say you're NOT tryin' for a kid, it _is_ my business. Does the rhythm method mean anything to you?"

Partly too hot in the head to respond, and partly too confused by the term to say anything, I only shook my head through a glare. The coot sighed and dug into his pockets. I was made to look at a clean shit ticket with drawings and organic mechanic jargon scrawled all over it. I told him I couldn't read it, he replied that his handwriting wasn't that bad, so I reiterated. I can't _read_. I hoped that would force him to give up and leave. It was a partial lie. I could piece together sounds of letters and figure out a few words at a time. He didn't go away, he started reading to me like I was a pup looking at a diagram of an engine for the first time. I hated this, but I did learn shit even if it was unwillingly. I thought there was no way to avoid the risk of pups, and maybe that the frequency had to be pretty high to wind up with one. No, there was a distinct block of time on that twenty-eight-ish day cycle of normal and not-normal where trading paint, even just once, can be a serious problem. I did not know that. I didn't retain much else. Some of it sounded ridiculous. People don't lay eggs like birds, and I've never seen shit swimming around in my stuff.

"...so, if you MUST be nasty. Pull out. For the love of God. No offense, but I don't wanna find out what kinda kid you two would raise up." he finished at long last.

I was left in the silence, looking at the thin scrape of old paper with a circle drawn on it and ringed with numbers and scribbles. It showed what days mean what, and the red days marked days a person like Dune would be miserable and apparently bleeding. The bold numbers marked when you could accidentally get stuck with a pup.

"...can I keep this?" I wasn't sure if I would remember this if I didn't have it or copy it down somewhere.

Wilson held up both hands and ducked his head as he left, visibly done with this conversation too. "Take it."

Thank V8 he was gone. I did count the days though, just to make sure the two times I had rolled around with the Nutter didn't fall on any risky day. Should be safe, but he also said 'it varies woman to woman,'. I spent the nearly my entire shift with a knot in my gut and at the end of it, I checked on Dune. She was all balled up around her aching middle and having a fitful nap.

My damn skull loved to torture me, I imagined her knocked up for exactly one second and the pull of my face into a deep cringe was instantaneous. That's just not something you think about, not out here and hell, not anywhere else either. If I screwed the pooch on this one, she could end up with a tiny corpse covered in tumors or a monstrous lump of deformed flesh. I knew damn well that my blueprints couldn't possibly be stellar, I presumably came from the wretched folk after all. Even if, by some V8 blessed miracle, my baby-gravy managed to spawn a healthy pup, it would still be one hell of an inconvenience. You can't make pups when your situation is uncertain, that's why wretcheds give theirs up to the lift guardians. But... Damn it, I was getting too soft. For just a minute or two, I let himself watch Dune sleep through the back window of the car and imagined her with a pup in her arms, not necessarily mine because it just doesn't have to be and probably shouldn't be. Yeah, she was nuts, but she'd probably make an okay mum, and a pup of her own would probably make her happy. She was pretty attached to Ard's pups by the time we left the bog, especially Trellis.

One simple thought can lead to other, stranger thoughts. I felt a wave of inexplicable misery, and my head churned out something from memory buried so deep that it had become dream like. Black hair, lots of it, and it would pool like water in the sand behind her. I used to hide in it until it all fell out. It came away from her scalp in clumps if I clung to it, and the last I saw of that haggard face It was getting smaller, further away as I rose higher on the lift, higher, higher still to the entry platform of the war tower. I lied when I once told Dune that I forgot my mother. I'd lied to her and myself. All I could clearly remember was the hair, her face was vague and I couldn't quite grasp any detail besides the protrusions of bone under skin in her thin, dying face. I still hated her, I couldn't pry that feeling apart from the memory, the pain of being given away. I couldn't be sure which parts happened and which parts were simply assumptions to make sense of why she handed me off. If she was dying, then I guess she had no other option, but it still hurt and I still couldn't be certain if that was the case.

We all quit watch after that day, if War Boys were going to come looking for us, they'd have already found us. That was simple fact, and Storm Chasers were clearly finished with their rampage. A dangerous quiet had fallen on Scav Country, we'd be leading the caravan though it, obvious as ever. Dune's mood eased up and things went back to business as usual, with a few added perks which don't need to be discussed. Dune, she was looking and acting off on the day we left. She didn't say much, but that was expected. We probably wouldn't be coming back here, to this place. She'd lived here for eight years, six of those years alone. I didn't bother to ask how she felt as we poured all the guzz we had into the two chariots, even siphoning the bike to be certain the Bus and the Impala had enough to make the trip out to where we would meet the others. They would be a full day into their journey by now, taking the safe routes we'd marked on a drawn map for them. All the ammunition Dune had was in the car, arranged within easy reach. I had fashioned a bladed polearm out of sharpened steel and one of the broken sticks which had once been a piece of my old crutch.

"It's quiet, Duck. Not right."

"I know. Nutter. We'll be fine."

Those were the only words we exchanged on the way to the meeting place, and there we waited. A small fire warmed the three of us between the Bus and the Car. Dune leaned against my side and slept for a time, wrapped up in one of the blankets. The damn old fuck smiled at me and I scowled at him. Didn't like his eyes on me like that.

It wasn't quite a full day later that we caught first sight of them. Dune set off a whoop to wake me and the stale fart, she was waving and hopping about at the top of the stone formation with the long lookers in her other hand. To be sure she wasn't mistaken, I had scrambled up the rock to yank the looking glass from her hands and have a good look myself. I saw the truck Crank and I had fixed up, behind it the seven other cars we had fortified. It was them. They made it that far.

Dune was attacked, just like the day we arrived at her dead Green Place. Ardith almost crushed her to death, and her children did too. Crank's grinning face was what I saw next and I was not even remotely prepared for what he did to me, dragging me in at the collar and trying to crush me too.

"Ready to do this, Fucker?"

"No,"

"Hah! Me neither." He said, the quivering in his voice exposing how afraid he was.


	4. The Caravan

**-Dune-**

Arddie was all smiles at first. She hardly allowed for Phil to bring the pickup to a complete stop before throwing open the passenger door and leaping right out. She was unsteady on the shifting sand, too accustomed to the squelch of mud under her feet. I'd even missed her smell though now, surrounded by these thirsty lands, she came with an aroma of mold and mildew as we embraced. The two older sprouts were next, tumbling out of the cab to stumble and trot through the slippery grit. They squeezed between us and my legs were captured by small arms. Felt like family. Felt good. From over Arddie's shoulder, I saw Slit getting the same treatment and had to stifle laughter at how stiff he was as Phil gripped him tight and slapped his back.

"You clean up good, Pup." Phil laughed, scratching over Slit's shorn head with his fingertips.

Ducky cursed and slapped the offending hand away when the elder man cocked a brow and gave his scav tassel a little tug.

With joyous reunions said and done, the time came to explain to the others all that had come undone in these parts. It had to be done and my old friend's face matched the dread clinging fast to my bones. Watching her smile fall from joy to a shudder of trepidation was painful. Phil, Ard, Featherknife, Bones, and all the others who had gathered around us were painted in shades of worry.

"Razed? There were three major camps on that map you drew and a dozen other territories..." Ardith exclaimed quietly as if she suddenly feared her voice might be heard by raiders above the idling engines all around us.

Heta, the clan elder, was being helped out from the back of one of the vehicles, a black Escort, by the same younger man I'd seen helping her at the meetings which brought us all to the decision to come together here. She had to be ushered close enough to hear in the curl of the young, strong arm around her, and I had to repeat all that had been said. Wilson now helped me to fill her in. I tried not to take it too personally that she seemed more apt to listen to a man closer to her own age as he spoke. I turned back to Ard to answer her words, finally.

"We didn't know anyone out here could swing that kinda juice either," I replied, and by then Wilson was through with his story to Heta and interrupting mine.

"I had a suspicion, actually," Wilson said, scratching behind his left ear in a rueful manner. "Most of my best equipment came from treating their kind for their deficiencies, and sometimes injuries that make you _wonder_."

No one here knew Wilson. He was a surprise addition to the traveling party. As of yet, they had no idea what his profession was or what his association to Slit and I could be, so eyes all looked upon him with suspicion. Phil even seemed to shift every time the old man did, subtly keeping himself between the doctor and his rather large family. Jackie was happy to keep himself directly behind the much older Citadel man or Featherknife at all times.

Slit spoke, giving his insight now that Wilson and I were finished relaying news of local events. He looked directly at Phil. I supposed that was because another former War Boy was the only one he could be sure understood his words and the things he hid in them.

"Raids seem to be over with. They burned through everyone out here in less than a week. Still not safe, though. They could be patrolling their new territories and anyone left alive would be desperate and not taking no for an answer."

Phil bared his teeth and nodded. "How does that translate to drive-time?"

Slit crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged as he glared Westward toward the mountains. "An extra day, maybe two. We'll have to follow the Loon on this one, she knows the roads no one out there uses much."

Ardith scowled at Slit. Could've been the Loon bit, but it's hard to know with those two mad-cats, always at each other's throats.

"Need to count inventory. Should still make it just fine on the guzzoline we got with us, but to be sure..." Phil trailed off as he pulled down his respirator to scratch under his chin.

"We brought scrap and some wire to patch on more armor where these rust-buckets need it." Slit offered genuinely but to the untuned ear, it could be heard as an insult.

That broke Phil from his trance. He peered about at the others who were all unsure, wearing masks of defeat, all but Heta. She slapped the handle of her cane and called out through a few coughs. "We must stay firm on this course, the only choice is to go on. This is a race toward life, all that awaits here in these parched lands is death. To go back is to die slowly."

Her declaration gave no comfort and did not rally this motley crew, but it did underline how narrow their options were. My own margin for choices wasn't much wider. With most residents of Scav Country scattered or rotting, food was an issue for me and the two men in my company. Wilson's supplemental MREs would run out eventually, and my hunting would become very thin and very dangerous with so few left to hunt. We'd have to survive mostly on scaly beasts and with winter closing its frosty fingers around the world, it was no great leap of my vivid imagination to picture the three of us dropping the pounds fast and Wilson winding up the first to cark it. He'd go in the maggot farm, but that would only extend mine and Ducky's lives for a few weeks. The Storm Fetishists might as well have set the pantry on fire.

Slit and Phil almost immediately began unloading the scrap metals from Shirley's tired back. They wouldn't have the torches for welding these bars and sheets on, but they had hand tools, hammers, wire, and fraying rope. Somehow they managed together and with the help of other men to bend and shape steel to tie or bolt on over non-essential windows and exposed gas tanks. Jackie showed his origins too, zooming about between Phil's pickup, Shirley, and other vehicles to locate and bring whatever tools he was asked to fetch. Slit told me about that long ago when he tried and failed to teach me proper mechanics. War Pups have to know their tools and fetch them quickly for their elder brothers. I only had a short time to watch.

Ardith and I busied ourselves counting supplies and relaying information between the elders and those who were busy bulking up the defenses on each set of wheels. Heta seemed to be in charge, she was the one making the important decisions, but I quickly realized that she valued my words. The answers I gave in exchange for her questions seemed to hold weight. It was because these lands were a world apart from the bog. I'd lived and traveled here longer than anyone else among us, longer even than Wilson who was dragged into the Scavenger Lands by thrall rustlers just before I was set ablaze and left for the buzzards. My words mattered and that power felt different. She asked me how secure this location was and after I told her that few come this far out toward the east, she caught Jackie by the wrist the next time he passed by. She ignored the anxiety on the boy's face and told him to tell Phil, who she simply called "The War Boy", that we were camping here for the rest of the day and the night. We'd move on at dawn. Supplies and the stock of food were as thin as I imagined they might be. We could probably do without camping overnight to save water and food, but Heta's decision was final.

I helped Arddie get the clan children corralled and we dug out a shallow pit for a fire to cook over. I worried about the water usage as she boiled down dried stuffs but she told me no one save for the children had eaten since they left the bog. They were indeed conserving what they could. A day or two with nothing to eat meant most of the adults were drawn over simply by the smell. The ones busy working with the scrap Ducky and I brought had to be chased down and handed tin bowls and mugs.

Slit took his with an eager grunt. Phil pulled down his mask and took his own but reached out to Arddie before giving the bowl a second glance. He pulled her back gently at the collar of her jacket to kiss the apple of her cheek. Ard smiled so sweetly at that.

Slit and I exchanged an awkward glance at one another. I'm sure we had the same questioning thought. So, is that what we were supposed to do just now? Somehow, imagining Slit or myself showing that kind of affection publicly was uncomfortable. I decided we were different, and that was all.

My initiate sister and I got her wee ones fed and had time to sit and speak thereafter. We talked a bit more about what had gone on in our separate lives since we last saw each other. The bog had stayed safe and boring, Scav Country may as well have gone kaboom. I told her about the refinery, the towers of smoke, the bodies. It was something easier to talk about with my old friend than with anyone else. It was something we had both seen at home when it began to die. It was nice to link our hands for comfort the same as when we were young. She was older than me by a handful of years. I used to idolize her, as many small ones do with older children.

As we spoke of the war Slit and I had witnessed here, Arddie and I fell into a long discussion about home and the memory of green.

"I can't believe something still grows out there. I just can't. I'll buy it when I see it." Ard told me. Her opinion was less hopeful than I had been led to believe.

"Dune takes it that you haven't told the others how you feel."

She shook her head, lips pulled in a half smile that was anything but happy.

"I think it will be better, sure. A green place on top of three towers, though? C'mon Dune Buggy, you gotta admit it sounds like a campfire story." She shrugged after what I thought was her final words on the matter, glancing at me near shamefully. "I never told Phil I don't believe him."

I had no idea she was so skeptical, nor that she'd so convincingly go along with an idea she didn't agree with.

"Why have you come, then? Taken your sprouts all this way?" I had to ask.

"Dead either way, just slower to go in the bog. Plus, what if I'm wrong. I'm just- I'm hoping I'm wrong." She added nothing else when I couldn't think of any words to encourage her. It's not like I had any evidence to support the claims made about the place.

I gripped her right hand tighter in my left, hoping she was wrong too. Her left hand lifted from her hip to show me something she'd dug out of a satchel on her belt. It looked to be no more than a few inches of leather rolled around an old sweet wrapper and tied off.

"I have this, just in case. Seeds. I don't even remember what they are." My old friend told me sadly, but I was awed as I touched the worn edges of the leather. I didn't have to undo the ties and see for myself. I wouldn't dare risk spilling something so precious into the sand to be lost forever.

"You brought a piece of home, Arddie." I breathed, and Goddess, I hoped that the seeds were still good and the dirt at the Citadel sweet.

"Dune, when was the last time we prayed? Together I mean."

She interrupted my fantasy of gently nursing little green sprouts from loamy dirt. I could remember the exact moment. It was when my Pa and her Mum were both sick. This was before Mumsy and I left our home and Ard refused to leave her mother behind. I shook my head, unwilling to say it, but her hands pressed around my left and as if by the memory in my bones, my right joined them to surround the seeds still nestled in her palm. This was the first time I had prayed for green, growing things since I was a child. Ardith and I beseeched our Lady of Green for a bountiful harvest over a bundle of hope that we'd not even planted in the earth yet. It was cleansing, a reminder of where we came from.

 **-Slit-**

Crank was nervous. If you hadn't grown up around him, you wouldn't know. He cracks his knuckles more when anticipating something going wrong. He'll stop what he's doing, heave a sigh, and twist his fingers together in ugly contortions until you heard them crackle, then he'd keep on working. I dismissed it because there was nothing I could do about his cooling feet and the less I thought about what we were doing, the less my stomach rolled acid up my throat.

We ate the food his wife and the nut brought us, a weird interaction, and left the emptied tin dishes on the hood of the Impala the next time we came to it to pull off more scrap.

We said nothing to each other outside what had to be communicated in the effort to fill in the vulnerable spots on each chariot. When things to do or rather the materials to patch on metal started to run out, the majority of us migrated toward the fire pit. Crank was more interested in giving everything a second inspection, moving car to car to bike, and I had nothing better to do than follow him.

"Slit, you gonna tell me or not?" He said as he knelt to look under another pickup he'd said had a patch job radiator. I wasn't in the mood for vague questions.

"What're you bitching about now?"

"I'm not as old and stupid as you think," he began tersely, the elder brother I truly came up under creeping into his tone. "I know there's something you're not telling me about what's out there and I know you left something out about how we're gettin' over those mountains. I brought my pups out here. You better fess up."

It was an echo of puphood. I knew the threat of an ass whipping from my elders when I heard it and it shames me to say it still drives a chill up my spine, reminding me of Spanner. I swallowed hard and found that my tongue had dried out.

"Might still get pissed if I do," I grunted in reply, trying not to back off a few steps out of instinct. Didn't seem to matter to my gut that I could mop all of Scav Country with Crank now that I was grown and he was old for our kind.

He quit feeling around under the truck for leaking coolant and looked up at me. I couldn't find a trace of anger on him, only worry. _Father's worry._ That's what it was, I'd seen it on him before but didn't figure what it was till then. He was right, he'd brought those kids out here and wasn't doing this for anyone but them.

"I won't, Pup. Just tell me," he said it gently, but that made me shudder internally too.

"It's... It's not that dangerous as long as you don't stop and don't stick your head out the windows. They might not even try a damn thing on this many armored rigs." I started and stopped to scratch at the blunt ends of hair growing back in on my head. Damn, there's that gut acid burning holes through me. I had heartburn.

Shit, might as well just let a rip. I grabbed him by the elbow and towed him around to the back gate of the truck, out of earshot.

"It's pups. They're all feral pups..." I let go of him and took a breath, he just blinked at me as if I was talking through a fever delusion.

"Is that it? There's a bunch of rugrats screwing around on the shoulder of some road." He deadpanned, disregarding all warnings I'd given and the steel arrow I'd shown him a month ago. He could have forgotten about the latter. Now his bored face was starting to piss me off.

"Will you just _listen_ , asshole?" I growled, so he lifted his brows and motioned with his hands to go on. I could practically smell his low expectations. "Just... Don't tell anyone this, they busted my head and tried to eat me."

That put some seriousness back in his know-it-all face. Good.

"There was one in the road. I got out- or stopped. I don't remember. Woke up with a headache next to some bloke-mc-nugget missing both arms and a leg. They were eating him. Slow. Keeping him alive so he stayed fresh? Watched them take the other leg, drugged him out so he didn't scream. They burned the stump with a pan full of hot embers so he didn't bleed out."

Now Crank wore a cringe as he asked the obvious question. "How'd ya get away? Were you tied or-"

"Cuffs, chained to a stripped chassis," I snorted, looking at the sand between our feet. I didn't want to see the judgment in his eyes. "Picked out one of the staples on my gut, bent it up enough to fit into the mechanism and sprung um off. Choked out the older one who had my keys, found my leg and got the hell out."

"Oh, well, that's different isn't it. Fuck me, mate." He said with a now twisted expression.

"Get it now, Don'cha?" I seethed.

"Yeah," Crank leaned to see around the cab of the truck toward the others. "Your girl knows about this?"

I shook my head. No, she didn't. My teeth ground when I realized what he said there, but I couldn't really refute anything at this point nor be sure if I wanted to. It just felt accusatory when he said it. Again, I was reminded of consequences I'd have faced one thousand days ago if I came up the lift back home with scratches down my back.

"Well, they should all know beforehand, _I_ should have known a month ago. Don't you think?" That time he was definitely accusing.

"I told you it was a shit road," I countered.

"What the hell makes it safer than The Canyon, then? At least THAT'S faster!" He was throwing his hand around in the air, gesturing West.

"Scrotus Boys." I spat back at him, and thankfully it shut him up a minute.

I looked back and saw Dune craning her head to look at us. I doubt she heard much but she could probably see Crank swinging his arm around. Looking at her, I wanted to throw up. If she found out the danger ahead came in the form of kids, which she called sprouts, she'd walk into that situation with her mind made up that she wouldn't be shooting at anything, even if they were firing at us. I've seen her around kids enough, she had the Harpy's youngest in her lap right now. The thought repulsed me too, but what other option is there? If they attacked, we'd have to defend ourselves and that's just how it is.

"We can't tell anybody." I decided.

Crank snorted and I heard him messing with his respirator to yank down off his face. He was preparing a bellowing argument like any fuck raised in the War Tower would. I didn't give him enough time to shout one word.

"Would your people shoot or sling thunder if they had almost a week to think about _maybe_ having to kill a kid?"

He was furious, that was clear as cola when I turned my head to look him dead in the eye. His dark skin seemed to be turning purple around the bulging veins of his neck and forehead. I knew he'd get pissed. He lied, and I could tell he knew it because he let off a gust of air and sat by a tire instead of saying or doing anything about how steamed he was. He scrubbed down his face in both hands before looking at me again. I don't know how to explain why I felt disappointed without being surprised by his anger.

"Were there any adults?" He finally asked.

I shrugged. "Didn't see any. Didn't see any faction colors or marks on um either. No fucking clue whose they are. _Somebody_ is dumping supplies for 'um once a week, though. Overheard that while I was cuffed."

"Ah, fuck." He cursed and had one of his coughing fits before pulling his respirator back into place and continuing. "...so, what do you propose we say to the others?"

"Hostiles, but still not as thick or tight as The Canyon. That enough?"

"It'll have to be, I guess. Ard's gonna skin me, you know. When she finds out."

"Dune might shoot me." I half-joked and Crank wheezed a soft laugh. I hated how his switch in mood sent a wash of relief over me.

"How many."

"More than a dozen. Last time I took that road I could hear them, they kept out of the headlights. Didn't stop to give them the chance."

That was the last we spoke of it. We both sat there, stewing in the fester of knowing what was ahead. I felt pulling at the collar of my vest and the ring of the scarf around my neck. I jerked on reflex and looked over to find him leaned closer and looking at my neck. I knew exactly what he was looking at.

I got up before he could start grinning like a moron and went to the fire to drop on my ass next to Dune. This was going to be a long fucking week.

 **-Dune-**

Some folks kept watch from the top of the formation, that meant the group of bodies sitting around the fire could stay there for a while. Duck and I stuck near the heat. We burned decades dry brush, trash, anything that could catch flame. When night fell, some of us stayed in the circle around the fire and slept stretched out in the sand. The restless who couldn't catch a wink minded the fire and kept it from going out. With this many eyes open and watchful, Slit and I didn't worry too much about sleeping out in the open. For some reason, the former War Boy was stiff all over through the night. He grunted and grumbled and insisted that we face one another as we slept. I was kept folded into his layers of leathers and jacket with the front left open. It was warm, for certain, but I had to wonder what could be going on in his head for him to be holding onto me like that. His arm had hardly loosened by morning when I woke to shiver from a cold back. The fire had been smothered out and the companions around us were beginning to wake. Slit only woke because I had to wiggle free from his grip.

Breakfast was a drink from the canteen and a wipe of the face. We were to be moving the moment everyone was ready to go. The excess weight of non-necessity on Shirley was ditched and left in the sand for another lucky scav. I'd have felt blessed by the wastes to have found it, especially at times like this.

It was our duty to lead the way, the head of the caravan, the ones to blaze the trail for the others. Phil was behind us, flanked by Buick and a Jeep all adorned in long steel barbs on the sides which faced outward toward the harsh unknowns. He was, after all, hauling all of the clans youngest children, not just his own. Behind the covered pickup, Wilson's van moved at the middle of the line. His knowledge and supplies were to be protected, once they were made aware that he was a man of medicine. Armed men astride motorcycles escorted him at each side. Slit and I had our own little escort, Bones, and Featherknife riding along on a lovely, rust chewed Harley Indian. Their job was to zip about and relay what could not be told through the hand signals Slit threw out the side window to Phil. They, too, were armed with black magic on spears. I hoped we wouldn't have to watch those arms blow in brilliant flashes and bangs.

"They shouldn't bother with their long lookers," said the man at my side as he jerked his thumb back at the rear glass.

I took a peek back, spying an elder woman perched atop Wilson's Van, I think her name was Ellie, with a nice pair of long lookers pressed over her eyes.

"Don't see nothin' wrong with it, Ducky," I said.

Slit snorted through his nose and wiped under it with a finger. "There's no one out here in any shape to start shit with a convoy this size, 'cept the sand breathers who wrecked the joint. We'd probably hear them long before we saw them. We can stick out like a crooked foot all we want, and if the Storm Chasers come, we're fucked whether we fight um or not."

He was right but...

"Let them have the comfort of seeing nothing on the horizon," I said and watched him shrug it off as he glanced at the side mirror.

"These rigs look like buzzard jalopies and the Citadel fleet hate fucked and shat um out their exhaust pipes." He muttered.

I couldn't help but grin at that image up in my skull meat while I sat turned around in my seat to observe these aberrations of steel. Yes indeed, these were rest flecked and abominable beasts, but they ran and that was more than anyone had the right to ask for.

The vehicles behind us veered apart suddenly to avoid a spray of yellow chunks. My eyes were drawn to my side mirror to see Featherknife cringing behind his dust mask and struggling to control the bike while Bones leaned over awkwardly behind him to heave and retch. 'Motion sick,' Feathers called out to me.

"Just like old times," Slit growled with amusement and flapped a couple fingers out his window. Phil replied with a tap on his horn. This was a battle fodder joke I didn't and might never understand. Poor Bones.

–

Hours is what it takes to cross the whole of Scav Country in a straight line. To weave through these lands avoiding the other settlements, it takes days. I gave Slit directions and with one knowing the way and the other driving there was no room to snooze. All along the way we still saw faint smoky wisps of final embers burning out over any camp we passed.

We could not stop often but there is always the need to refill canteens, take constitutionals, feed the crop of sprouts, hand out rations, and refuel. All of this had to be taken care of in a half hour or less any time we parked this long line. It was boring and exciting all at once. Slit and Phil seemed to run things tightly while taking orders from Heta and other elder women. Slit didn't appear to agree with them often, more than a dozen times I watched Phil check him with an elbow in the ribs before reiterating their perspective on the Elder's opinions. Both had valid concerns. The elders rightfully asserted that people needed to eat and rest, Phil and Slit weren't comfortable stopping so often in war-ravaged territories. We couldn't have people falling out from exhaustion and hunger at the wheel, and the risks involved in lingering anywhere were quite high. A decision was made late in the night of our third day and a place marked on a map where we would stop in two days time. Slit had been there before and deemed it safe enough. He was certain that this spot was nowhere near any encampments that he knew of. People would be able to stretch out, eat a real meal, rest, and prepare themselves for the final legs of our journey. By that third night, I was eager for it. When Slit got back into the driver seat, he looked at me with a humorless face darkened by exhaustion.

"You better rest up in your seat because you're driving from dawn till dusk." He announced with an irritable slur.

"Ah, what?" I barked back.

"If I don't sleep I'm gonna crash or get road hypnosis or both." He gruffed.

I then understood that he wasn't trying to vex me with that snipity tone. He needed the winks, but I had driven Shirley very little and we were at a point that he knew the way better than I did. I had never been this far south. I voiced that, loudly. So he rolled his eyes and began digging through his pockets. Out came a little tin, no bigger than his palm. He popped it open with his thumb to reveal a razor blade wrapped in tape on one end, a curved needle, a finger width roll of catgut, and a tiny stub of soft charcoal. I've seen this before, something I dug out of his pockets when I met him and stored away while he recovered. I had then thought it was a little kit to mend tears in clothes. I knew better now, this was his carving kit.

He plucked out that sad bit of charcoal, licked it as he held it pinched between his thumb and forefinger, then began to draw right on the dashboard.

"This is your map. Just follow it and once you run out of road, follow the mountains till you see this set of peaks." He scribbled a winding web of lines and put an X over every turn I shouldn't take, then sketched a set of mountain tops above it all, one rising much higher than its friends. "It's that easy. Once you start seeing concrete and ruins, you'll wake me."

By the time he was finished, that little stub of charcoal was nothing but dust between his fingers and I felt my guts clenching nervously. I'd have to lead the caravan. I was a lot of _no_ about it.

I napped, fitfully. Every time Shirley rocked a bit too hard on rough roads, my dreams reflected it and woke me. Wasn't happy to have driving dreams, never was because they always played on my lack of know-how with such things. I preferred bikes, nudging the shifter with the toe of my boot as needed and throttling with my hands. The weirdness of sitting comfy, peering over the long bonnet and around the scoop, pushing on pedals and sitting with my legs stretched to reach comfortably... I just couldn't seem to get accustomed. We switched places at the next scheduled stop. Had to take out Slit's special pedal mechanism and adjust the seat too. And the mirrors.

 _Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck._

I knew enough of the hand signals to be capable of telling the people behind Shirley what was going on. Closed fist meant break, pinky finger meant slow ahead, a flap of the hand meant to put some stank on the gas pedal to get up an incline, circle in the air meant keep eyes open for trouble, the list goes on. I saw in the rear view that Ard was at the wheel of the truck. Somehow that was comforting.

Slit didn't immediately sleep. He took off his leg, massaged the angry flesh and flung the filthy stump sock into the back. He gave his brand of commentary and suggestions as I started the car. Yes, I stalled it twice before we got moving, but for once he didn't chew me out for it. It was my nerves this time more than a lack of knowing on the matter. The lesson he gave on the journey home from the bog had stuck but I was twitchy. Maybe he was too tired to get all broody about his car but instead of scolding, he told me there wasn't much of anything out this far to worry about. He said there were no people and no camps for hours once the familiar dirt trails of Scav Country ended, only sand. Working the pedals and shifter became easier after that. The instructions he left couldn't be more direct. Holy seeds, I was driving a car modded to scuffle with other cars, and I was leading nine other cars and four bikes. I felt kinda big behind that wheel while Slit slept.

I drove for a little more than eight hours, days were now short as the cold season really revved up. The lizards hardly ever come out to play this time of year, but the setting sun is somehow lovelier in winter. Mum always said it was because of the pollution, people burning whatever they could to keep warm and the smog of distant settlements setting the sky ablaze as light passed through the toxic shit in the air. Thankfully, there wasn't much need to stop. Just for piss breaks. Everyone had fueled up as much as possible before Slit and I suppose Phil also decided that they couldn't stay awake at their respective wheels much longer. A stop or two to whizz, reload canteens and jugs, and on we went.

Slit was groggily awake for the final hour of my turn with the wheel. He might have been up longer than that in silence but I couldn't be sure. He was just watching the road with his sleep-swollen eyes and murmuring this and that to me, confirming that everything went smoothly. I had no complaint but a numb ass, which he smirked at. Wriggling fingers digging their way under my rump made my leg jerk over the gas.

"Hey! HEY!" I yipped only to be laughed at while Shirley lurched forward. "You're being distracting!"

"I know," he rumbled with a squeeze of his greedy mitt around my left ass cheek.

Give an inch and Slit goes a mile. He let his hand stay there, probably going numb as I sat on it and composed both myself and poor excited Shirley back to a consistent speed. That's new, never had a Slit grab that before, though, he pretty much always grabs whatever the hell he wants whenever he wants it. First, it was ol' lefty, a soft hand. If history said anything about the future, I'd have to fashion prong studded butt armor if I didn't want his hands on it. I didn't mind enough to go that far, though.

He had the long-lookers in his free hand, peering through them every once in a while until he abruptly pulled his hand out from under me. He rolled down the passenger window to lean out and throw a signal back to the others, the long line slowed behind us.

"Ruins ahead, slowly, before time roads are rust," he instructed.

It was more nerve-wracking to fiddle with the gears in front of him. For some reason, I wanted to impress him? Or at the very least prove I could do this good and proper. The ruins he mentioned were a good distraction from my unhappy guts. Concrete slabs, I-beams and exposed rebar revealed by crumbling old-world walls. There were big boards held in the sky maybe twenty feet up, faded images and words. _Petrol. All Night Diner. Bob's tattoos. Sleepy Sanctuary: mattress discounters,_ and others too wind ravaged and sun faded to make out. This place, it was a town. Under us was ancient asphalt. It was pitted and uneven. Deep cracks were everywhere, some parts had risen up and others sunken into the dead earth by more than a hand length. Shirley rocked and shivered, once bottomed out which made Slit hiss as if he'd felt the scrape of the road against his own underbelly.

"Next left. There's a big lot we could all park." He instructed.

"You don't think anyone could be hiding here?"

"Only lizards."

"You're sure?"

"Nope."

"But why here? We could move east into the sand drifts."

"Too easy to get turned around in the drifts. This is the only landmark besides the mountains for miles and the road is easy to miss. There's no water here, no reason for anyone to stay." He reassured.

Good point. No water, no living.

I was amazed by the vastness of this "lot". The amount of asphalt, a mythic material to begin with, was inconceivable to me. So wide and empty that it chilled my blood and the steel skeleton of a warehouse way at the back of it was a bit of a spook too. How could anyone need a place this big? What could it have held?

"Goddess, Ducky. How'd they lay down that much blacktop?" I asked, and he shrugged as we pulled in.

"No clue," he reinforced the mysticism of it with his ignorance as he rolled on a clean sock over his stub and began putting on his leg. "Park near the middle away from those thingies."

Thingies? He must have meant those steel poles, bent like a curled arm at the tops, and sitting upon squat cylinders of concrete. A closer peek, and the bulbous structures at the very tips looked like light fixtures. Wow, someone had enough sparks to light up this whole space in the night as if it were the day. The old world surely was a time of decadence. I could understand why Duck didn't want to be parked anywhere near these relics. Some leaned awkwardly and much of their concrete foundations lay in pieces. He didn't want one of these to give way in a breeze and fall on the car.

People parked in two rows and everyone spent a good while ambling about on stiff joints, Slit especially. He hobbled and pawed at his left thigh, face twisted with each step. Wilson approached him, and for once Slit was fine with letting the old organic have a look at places chafed raw and blistered ugly. I stood nearby, massaging my sore behind in both hands while Slit received bandages from Wilson's bus and instructions not to wear them too thickly under the sock and socket. Ellie hung close and Wilson kept eyeing her suspiciously but his face looked a bit pink too. How curious. Ard sidled up just as Slit was getting his leg back on.

"Me, Bones, and a couple others are going rummaging for fire fuel before it gets too dark. Wanna come?" She asked.

"Tell everyone not to wander off alone. Or unarmed." Slit warned and we listened.

Bones brought a woodcutting axe, its handle worn in finger width grooves through the middle from countless hands gripping it over its lifetime. We hacked out ancient wooden studs from the decaying buildings around us. I think that's why a lot of these dwellings were caved in. Others before us had salvaged exactly these supportive beams for precisely the same reasons as the many years rolled on by since the end of the old world. We'd have a good hot fire tonight to warm tired bodies.

Others had already begun a fire by the time we got back, having gone searching for things to burn as well. Food was already cooking down in a half dozen pots and pans, too. Clearly, everyone was eager for comfort. It was around the glow of a rather impressive burning pit that we found Slit, Phil, and the rest of the family.

"Ay! Girlies! Bones! Over here!" The elder of the two Citadel men called with a wave of an arm from among a group of other men, young and old.

Arddie's two older sprouts instantly found her and clung to her pant legs, jabbering away in their excitement about the huge flames and the things they'd seen around them. Little Red was held by Featherknife and fast asleep against his chest. We dumped our load of flammables in a pile others had contributed to and joined the group basking in the warmth. Phil was looking at me, beckoning me with the curl of his fingers to come closer so he didn't have to shout. I wound up standing in the space between his and Slit's shoulders. There was a pulling on my waistband. I expected one of Ard's broodlings tugging on me for attention, but when my good and feeling hand searched for the offending little fingers, they found a thick and callused digit hooked into a belt loop. It was Slit, clinging discretely. I didn't get a chance to shoot a questioning look at him, Phil had begun speaking.

"Hey, Dune, I was just about to mention it to Slit, nice to see ya driving. Lil hesitant with the shifting, but _hey_ better than the last time I saw ya with a wheel. Pup level is better than no level! Good on'ya." He complimented, which felt like great accolades coming from a seasoned former member of a cult which worships engines.

My cheeks burned and I knew I was smiling a bit dumbly the rest of the evening.

 **-Slit-**

There was a lot of small talk and eating. By midnight groups splintered off into smaller circles. Eventually, the fire burned through all the rubbish gathered for it and around dying embers the people thinned as others crawled into their rigs to sleep.

The night was cold, that meant piling every sheet and scrap of cloth we had onto ourselves and huddling together for body heat. Many were preparing themselves the same way. Some were forming groups again to sleep in, stuffing four or even five people into the back seat of a vehicle.

Dune and I came prepared, and this wasn't the coldest night we'd seen. We were fine on our own and passed on the offer when Ardith asked if we wanted to sleep in the truck bed with their group. Finding a space to sleep sitting up among a bunch of kids and listening to Crank's congested snoring? No thank you. I spent enough of my puphood doing exactly those things.

Dune was already burrowing down and shifting the bedding about in the cramped space behind the seat. There were ammo boxes and junk for trade stacked behind the passenger side. We'd have to be packed together like those disgusting things Wilson called canned sardines. I don't know how he ate that shit and managed to keep waking up every morning.

When I climbed over the seat into the back, it was hard to see. I got the metal leg caught on her and after the ruckus from knocking her in the ribs with that, she had her hands around my belt to pull me down into her nest ass first.

I still had Phil's words in my head, praising Dune for her mediocre driving and trust me, it _was_ mediocre, but she _drove_ and didn't stall it out at any time. In the back of my head, I felt the urge to poke her in the nose about her truthfully shoddy work behind the wheel but an apparently stronger portion of the meat in my skull was proud that she got it done in spite of her lack of talent. Pride is weird, feels funny when it's for someone else. That officially made two people I'd ever been proud of and for the same thing no less. Nux is or was a superior driver, and when I wasn't so jealous of him that I could spit green, I was aware that I was lucky to be his lancer. Dune is possibly the worst at driving a manual on four wheels, but she could do it now without wrecking the transmission.

I wanted to make her aware of how much it pleased me to see her hands on the wheel and not feel the car lurching angrily or hear the gears screaming. Hearing someone else tell her she'd done well was bizarrely satisfying too, and as much as I wanted to take rightful credit for finally cramming that skill into her head, watching her get all chuffed with herself about it was the sticky kind of sweet you only get to taste a few times in your half-life.

She was trying to pull off my leg for me and complaining about the icy touch of it on her exposed calves, but I was keen on pulling her closer. Feeling her go still at my teeth in her throat was amusing.

"Been real chrome, watching you drive, Scav." I told her and she squirmed between my hands, maybe excited to be offered this praise again. It could also be lauding words from me, specifically.

Call me a dick, sure, but I don't feel much need to hand out pats on the back for being a little better than rust. Dune should be aware of that by now. If she got anything resembling admiration out of me, it wasn't likely to be verbal. I'm told people like to hear praise as much as see it in action but I'm still better at offering a reward for a proper job by doing, or in some cases not, doing something. This was a time when I did something. The second I abandoned her neck to taste her somewhere else she had bitten my lower lip, but not enough to give us mouths full of red again.

"Ugh, your war fodder ways. Getting soft on Dune for getting along with your best gal, a car." She murmured into my mouth but it didn't taste like an insult.

"Opposite, actually," I fired back, and she huffed with a groan of mock disgust.

"O' course, War Boy with your filthy vehicular fetishism. Surprised you ain't yet tried to get a Scav to talk cars while we're gettin' tangled." Dune was laughing through her words, like always, but the sound was soft and heavy against my jaw. I had a lewd urge to wrap my hands around her windpipe to feel the rumble of her voice. It might have felt like an engine idling.

What she meant, though, was something which made me pause. That might not be totally off the mark.

"Er, I wouldn't bitch about it if you did..."

"What's hot to spit about car junk, though?"

Good question. I shrugged, awkwardly lying on my side. I probably shouldn't have said the first thing that passed through my head.

"I dunno. You could threaten to strangle me with a serpentine belt? Wait. Actually, yeah, you could probably do that for real and I'd be into it."

Dune laughed again, loud and obnoxious. "Nasty boy! Dune would, but she thinks Shirley needs her belts more than you do."

I didn't feel like debating whether I could yank the belt for the night or find something else as a substitute. I wasn't after Dune just because I wanted to shoot one off. I wanted her motor running and to pump her gas pedal the same as she'd shown me she could do for the Impala. I pulled her close with my fingers hooked into her belt loops, undressed her under the covers, and tuned up every inch I could reach in the confined space for as long as my hands and mouth had the will to move.

Couldn't do things properly with so much shit piled in the back with us, didn't want to flirt with the risks of this day in the month either, so I tried some stuff Crank had joked about as long as I've known the pervert. Dune practically sang a song with no words for me that night. She left scratches on the right half of my scalp, too.

–

I was the first one awake the next morning. Everything was quiet and dawn had not yet broken. I was only out for a few hours, but that wasn't a big deal after sleeping while Dune drove. I'd had enough sleep that I couldn't force myself to take more.

V8, I could hear Crank snoring in the truck parked next to us. The nutter and I might have been forced to cocoon ourselves in the Impala but at least we weren't trying to sleep through that racket at close range.

Dune muttered under my arm, something about passing a bowl. It was safe to assume she was just dreaming about the night before, so I wasn't too worried about her starting her sleep antics. Seemed like they were getting less frequent over the last month or two, good, but I didn't think I'd ever not be watching for it.

I knew I wouldn't get mornings like this ever again. The Citadel was too crowded and the garages too loud at all hours to sleep in your rig. Someone is always doing something back home and the only places reasonably quiet were the Bloodshed and barracks. Some crews claimed unused spaces, empty storage chambers, and dead-end tunnels. I wasn't completely sure it was safe for Dune in the war tower anyway, to live there I mean. Might not be permitted to live in the Citadel at all. We might be told to live among the wretched, just as crowded but also at the mercy of the elements. They might segregate men from women if Furiosa has gone back to her apparent roots and turned it into Green Place part two. Who knows what we'd find there.

For now, I savored having Dune's leg around my right hip and her lips moving against my neck every time she spoke in her sleep. This could be the last time, just when I was starting to like it. I was making up catastrophes in my head.

Crank's snoring stopped, replaced with a few coughs and trumpeting snot into something, probably the rag he always had hanging out of his back pocket. He was awake, so I crawled out of the pile of moldy covers and left Dune to sleep on for a while longer. I could hear him taking a leak behind the truck by the time I got out, which wasn't a bad idea but I kept an eye over my shoulder while I unloaded. The bastard had a habit of creeping up on me while busy having a piss. Not this time, thank V8.

We met between the pickup and the Impala. He was wearing a smugness in his face, a know-all superiority that made me cringe as I waited for whatever ridiculous thing he was about to spout off.

"You're loud," were the only two words he said for a solid thirty seconds between huge gulps from a dust yellowed two-liter bottle someone had done macrame knots around with rope.

I thought it was cold when I first left the car, I even grabbed that jacket of Dune's before getting out. Now it felt like I was standing next to a foundry furnace. Gross prick was listening last night. He laughed at my face while he wiped a stray drop from his chin and lapped it up from the back of his hand. I couldn't come up with a counter to that before he flowed right into a casual question about the next step of the trip. Shit-head, he must have known I'd rather talk about that than linger on the first thing he said.

"How wide is that mountain road? I wanna figure out everyone's spots and do a dry run on the way."

"Two cars side by side. On the left is a valley on some stretches. The road wraps around two major chains of peaks, then it switches across that valley to curve around another mountain, putting that valley on the right. That's where I ran into- uh, problems."

"Alright," He motioned for me to follow as he went to the burnt out fire pit where he started scratching out shapes in the ash. "What's better. Single file or paired up?"

"The little gremlins might have the sense to get out of the road if everyone is paired up. The truck could be inside since you've got all the brats. The shooters aim from up high on the cliffs. They won't have the angle to get you through the side windows if you're against the inside."

"The Spike Jeep can ride on my left on that first stretch. When we cross into the cannibal munchkin zone, the Prickle Buick will switch out with the Jeep. That should keep any boarders off the truck. We'll pair the doctor up with Cooper an' his truck in the middle. Oh, Heta and Dutch behind my spotters. I hate organizing people like game pieces."

"Used to do it all the time at home," I pointed out.

"But we were all hoping to die gloriously. Everyone here but us- you know what I was gonna say." A former War Boy, even a deserter, has no place sounding so sentimental. He was right, though. No one here had any plans to die.

"Yeah," Not a productive topic, just made us both look constipated. "I want to be able to maneuver. No buddy for Shirley, she might have to clear debris."

"Shirley?"

"Uh. Err. The Nutball named the car."

"Ah, Cute. Let's give everyone another hour, then we'll get going and form up."

"Right,"

An hour later Heta, the oldest of all biddies, demanded that everyone ate again before anyone so much as looked at a car. What a waste of time and grit. Bones cringed and passed on breakfast. Sucks to suck. So far he'd chundered more than I could count on my fingers over the course of the trip. He wasn't made for guzz powered travel, too bad his pole walking days were over.

By the time we were permitted to get engines running and rigs lined up in formation, the sun had risen high enough that I was concerned we wouldn't get to where the road turned against the base of the mountains until after dark. I didn't want a convoy of mostly amateur drivers barreling around sharp curves in pitch black with only several working headlamps. This had to be a day run and it had to be fast. _Damn_. I already knew I'd be urging Crank and the old bag to let the caravan park overnight somewhere to wait for the light of day before crossing the mountains. I wasn't dragging the maniac through that hell hole at night.

Well, eventually we moved out. We could follow the broken remains of the old world road the rest of the way, but not driving directly over it. Would fuck up your suspension to spend hours rolling over this rust shit. In the shelter of mountain passes, the road was in better shape. Out here, exposure had worn and beaten it to pieces like shattered rearview glass. We drove alongside the remains of an old world freeway.

Dune kept watching at my side. She was at least partially informed that there would be armed people somewhere ahead, and the longer we rode, the more she peered about with her long-lookers. Her words on the first day of this trek repeated in my head, _let them have the comfort of seeing nothing on the horizon_ , and I was sure she'd see squat until we were halfway through the mountains. I was wrong.

We were only a half hour from the mouth of the path that had been featured in my nightmares nearly every night for the last week. Dune had straightened in her seat and gone stiff. The hair of her left forearm stood on end as she held her binoculars.

"Ducky... Slit," She paused, passing her long-lookers toward me with a shaky scar hand. "Tell me my sick brains are just screwing with me. Tell me that's not real."

My guts did a backflip. I had to dump the lookers into my lap and throw a signal out the window. Full stop. What I saw once I put it in park and tossed open the roof hatch to look was... It was something all too familiar. The broken road was framed in towering monuments of war. Pylons and scrap forged obelisks wearing coats of rotting flesh. Bodies held fast in place by whatever they could be skewered upon. Heads on pikes, too. Mingled through the viscera, symbols were seen both carved in decaying skin and cut out of steel. A profiled skull chased by a bolt of lightning. Dune wasn't hallucinating. The Storm Chasers had been here or had always been here. This was their road.


	5. The Road

**-Dune-**

"You lead us to our deaths!" someone shouted.

The clan once thick as thieves had formed into two angry mobs with an incredibly clear division between the two, and I was not above taking sides.

"He didn't know whose road it was!" I shouted back from between Ard and Ducky, unsure and glancing Slit's way. "Did you?"

"No!" he snapped, almost coming off hurt but quickly running back to his anger as he glared back at Cooper, who was fast making all sorts of accusations. He never wanted this move away from the bog, that was clear. Slit seethed further. "Firstly, If I'd FIGURED OUT who ran this road the first time I took it I wouldn't be dragging you out here, and secondly there'd be two-year-old shit stains on the seat of my car!"

Fair enough. Comet, Coop's mother I think, pointed her bony finger at Phil and shrilled. "You did this. You put us in the hands of a stranger and you can't accept that it was a mistake!"

Phil ground his teeth, he knew better than to raise his voice at a respected clan woman. You could see he wanted nothing more than to tear her a new one as he pointed his finger back and stammered. Gods, for a split second I didn't see Arddie's husband there, I saw my father. I was anxiously reaching across Slit to grab Phil's pointed finger and stop him from throwing his head down on the chopping block. I still wasn't sure who I was looking at when Ardith stepped in to speak for him.

"So rotting in the bog till the birds finally die off is better than just tearing off the bandage, huh?"

"Jesus, honey," Bones could be heard muttering against the back of her head. Yeah, I knew her true opinion of how things were going to go was pretty dark. That might've been the first time any of her husbands realized she was both anticipating death and more okay with it than staying home and playing out the end slow like.

Heta was leaning out from between an elder of the male half and her young helper, holding up the ram's horn and shaking it. I saw her mouth moving but couldn't hear her over the building roar of this circle of angry and afraid people. Children were wailing. A dog was yipping and yowling, Slit was growling so harsh that he vibrated next to me like an ailing motor. The divide became clearer and clearer. Even Wilson got involved but more to usher Heta and Matthew, the eldest of elders, away from the crowd beginning to press together and move like a single agitated creature. We'd become a snake biting its own tail.

Someone threw a hand and we all heard the clap of knuckles striking a jaw. A split second of awed pause, then Phil threw himself at Cooper and dragged him to the ground. Slit, as if lead on instinct, stepped into the fray to prevent another from driving the toe of their boot into Phil's ribs as he flattened the foolish sod who thought it wise to fight a former War Boy. Slit merely lifted his peg leg and let the silly cunt run into the foot of it herself. Really she just kicked herself in the gut with someone else's leg. Featherknife and Bones were next to jump into the tangle of flying limbs, saving Slit from being swept off his good leg by a barreling body wise enough to strike low. I'm not above this. Neither was Ard. Someone a good wallop across the head with a sturdy Scav's elbow. Ard had a fist full of hair and there was no telling whose it was.

There was a screech of sound so terrible and strange that you couldn't help but stop, then for a moment, I thought I heard the voice of the gods.

"ENOUGH!"

Well, that seemed to have put an end to all the "fun" we were having. I followed a dozen other sets of eyes and found that Wilson had provided Heta with... Some kind of weapon? A voice gun? It had a horn on one end and a plastic trigger. She had to hold it to her lips to fire her words at us. Wilson had it wired into the battery of the bus for her.

"We are NOT animals! We speak in turns! We do not draw our own blood!" She fumed. I've never seen Heta look anything but frail and ancient. Now, you could almost imagine her a little less wrinkled. I felt like a sprout looking forward to a spanking, I think we all did. I didn't like how the men seemed to shrink back and hide their faces, all but Slit and Phil. "Someone TAKE the talking horn and act your age!"

She was done and had thrown the talisman of speech into the sand at her feet for someone to grab and waved her hand to get someone to help her down off the roof of Wilson's bus. Leaving us to our shame, she sat inside that bus upon Wilson's fold-up chair, drinking from her jug of water in watchful silence. I believe we all felt quite foolish. Ellie, an older member nearing Wilson's ripe age and who had taken a shine to him, was the one who tentatively scooped up the horn.

The debate still raged on, but it was a controlled burn. No more blood was spilled. Facts known by all were repeated over and then over again. There simply is not enough food or water to spend weeks driving every which-way around the mountains and avoiding other factions. Turning back is a promise of a slow death in the bog, Scav country is in ruin and there's no way we could keep enough maggot farms full to feed this bunch. If we did nothing we were trapped and the canyon was no option. The talks were held through the night. Tempers still frayed, and those already womped good licked their wounds. It was decided, there was no choice but to press on, stay the course. We had no alternative.

Two cars were missing by morning, surely having turned back for the bog. The occupants of those vehicles taking their four children. The clan had shrunken. They were lost to us. Some mourned as if we'd seen them die. All we could do was ready our munitions by dawns shy light, drink our water, and make sure our bladders were good and empty before we pulled out of the sand drifts where we'd hidden for the night.

We backtracked twenty minutes and even in the cool of the morning, the stench of the war victims propped up like trophies of pride was unbearable. The maggot farm had nothing on this. A grey mist of flies was thick for a hundred yards. They were in such number that a few somehow crawled in through the vents on the dash. Slit slapped the slats closed.

"I'm glad a scav hasn't eaten," I told him.

He let out a gust of air and nodded. "I'm glad I took a dump before we left camp. I'm out of clean shorts," he joked, but it didn't sound like a joke at all.

"I'm not scrubbing your grundies if you crap yourself," I replied.

"Same to you."

I checked my pistol, checked his too. Loaded. Ready. I checked everything again, even though I'd made sure in the morning that there was plenty of lead within reach and my ammo box open and ready on the seat between us. I felt Ducky's hand land on my right knee.

"Just keep your eyes forward. Watch the cliffs," he said uncharacteristically soft into my ear. I sensed his fear, smelled it even.

My adrenaline juice was thick in my blood, too. I couldn't sit still once we were surrounded by the mountains and climbing treacherously curved inclines and rolling down dips in a crumbling road. You couldn't even pick up any speed here without worrying that you'd rattle your damn wheels off in the potholes. Got me thinking, how easy it would be for me to bag myself a driver if I were perched up on these crags. Slit was prone.

The roof hatch was open for my sniper's duties anyway. I couldn't sit idle and my palms itched terribly for Mum's lead spitter, so I moved it across my lap and pulled the bolt to feed the chamber.

"M'gonna get to business and have myself ready to serve up lead," I told him as I tucked my heel under my rump to push myself up and grab the frame of the hatch. He took my wrist and looked over, eyes locking onto mine in that way that made him look much too young. I could do nothing but plop back down into my seat. He cut his eyes back to the road and he pulled the hatch shut.

"Not yet,"

"Slit, you are too important to die knowin' the way! You have to lead these folk an' a scav needs to be able to do your shootin'!"

He huffed and shook his head with his eyes momentarily pinched shut.

"Cra- _Phil_ knows the way too. Made sure this morning. Just in case. Trust me. Not yet." Some of that comforting Slit attitude flowed back into his voice, and I knew he was serious, too.

I had to pull in a breath and let it go. _Trust him_. I was finding out how hard it is to trust anyone against gut instinct. I still clutched Mama's rifle close to me as I watched the cliffs, the road, peered out over the valley. I saw nothing alive. I watched Slit, too. His lips seemed glued together in a thin line against his teeth. Sometimes they parted so he could suck in a hiss at the toll this awful path must have been taking on poor Shirley.

My head hurt, the ache crawling up the back of the neck into my brain cradle. It was the strain of watching for the violence Duck told me he'd found here. He was vague about it, and I was sure if something spooked him bad enough that he couldn't brag about surviving it, it would be nasty.

"Must've pulled them off the road before the raids, must've figured someone would come looking to hit em back where it hurts."

I wasn't sure what he was referring to, must be talking to himself. I watched his eyes as he spoke, brows twitching up only to drop low over deep sockets again. He looked suspicious of what lay around the next bend in the road. Around we came and what was revealed to our eyes was a bridge. Parts of it were of the old times, the rest was rust and rot and whatever men and women of these times could use to fill the void of a past collapse.

Slit craned his head up to peer further over the scoop, then took a quick peek out his side window toward the front tire. I could feel and see it too. The ever-present potholes and cracks in the weathered blacktop were filled in with debris and flattened over with clay. We could move with greater speed.

"This ain't so bad now, why does a scav feel like something's fucked about it?"

"'Cause that only means someone else took the time to do this for their own rigs," He replied darkly, throwing a hand signal back at Phil.

A chorus of men shouting down the caravan sounded and the formation tightened up. "Be ready" was what I'm sure that flick of his fingers meant. There was something ahead, I was certain of it.

"Eyes on," he said to me without daring to tear his gaze off the road.

That was when I finally saw movement. A few thin bodies dressed in rags skittering over the hair-thin ledges like nimble mountain goats and quickly vanishing, seemingly absorbing into the very rock itself like water. A scav had to ready herself to take aim. I moved for the roof hatch but Slit launched a hand to keep it closed before grasping the gear stick again.

"Not yet" he gritted through his clenched teeth before sharply hissing a final word. " _Wait_."

A terror hung in the air, tension like rubber stretched too thin. In the side mirror, I spied Bones seated behind Feathers on their bike, a thunderstick lifted over his and Feather's right shoulders, ready to fling.

A moment of cold silence griped the air, only allowing for the collective thundering of the engines, then _it hit_. My heart leaped into my throat as a rain of steel barbs fell upon us, Slit had me by the back of the neck to yank me toward him and away from the window as it shattered. A thin shaft of metal stuck in the cushion of the seat where my left thigh had rested. Glass was scattered across my lap. Through the windshield, I witnessed once hidden figures emerge from rock faces. I peered back at the others behind us, hearing a scream.

A bike fishtailed, the tires seemed to have swept out from under the rider, sending the cycle skidding and throwing up sparks as steel met the road. The escort behind Phil's spotters swerved to narrowly avoid running over both the bike and the wounded rider. There was then an awful metallic pounding and it became apparent that we were also being pelted with stones. Our front glass was cracked, I had to wrench myself away from Slit and do my job no matter how he protested it, busting up the remaining glass in my window, raking the stock of Mum's rifle across the stuck shards to knock them off. I needed to lean out just far enough to deliver my lead to the deserving without bleeding myself out.

There came gunfire just as I slid my finger against the trigger and my eye into the scope. Another ear rending pop I know all too well. I found my target, a gunman some distance ahead on the highest reaches of man crafted Cliffs. I took aim but... What was I seeing? What a round little face, nose like a button, little legs so thin and arms barely showing enough strength to lift a weapon as long as he was tall. I hesitated.

"He can't be ten years old!" I wailed without realizing initially that the thought had come forth between my lips.

 _BANG!_

The bike Feathers and Bones were riding wobbled and there was another thunderous boom. The prickly Buick at Phil's flank seemed to toss itself up off its front tires! What was happening?! It swerved and careened over the shoulder of the road to roll down into the valley. _Oh seeds!_ The sheer violence of how it bounced and tumbled bumper over bumper. No surviving that. If I'd had anything in my guts, I'd have been tasting it a second time. The man who drove that was named Chatter.

My face, it was wet. Something kept spattering against my cheek. I saw red bright against pale skin at my left just outside my window. _Blood_. Bones was shot, bleeding ferociously at a place I couldn't spot. He must have been hit, dropped the thunderstick, and the Prickle Buick ran over it, exploding the right front fender.

The armed babe took another shot, this time grazing the frame of the driver side window, clearly aiming for Slit. I returned fire on reflex. The gunman, _the child_ , fell down the rock face in tumbles and the thud of his young body under the front left tire was absolutely sickening.

 _What have I done?_

 **-Slit-**

 _They didn't have snipers before._

That's the only coherent thought I experienced as Dune unleashed her own lead. She took only one at the head, the rest, she was missing her targets now. I know damn well her aim is better than that, even in a moving vehicle. She could have a kill tally of a half dozen by now but I was right, she had seen the enemy and refused to fight. She only threatened them with near misses and pushed them back into their hides which clung precariously to rock over our heads. _Damn it just shoot them!_ It wasn't like this before, they weren't organized like this.

The volley of darts and lead stopped with zero warning as soon as we hit the stretch of road where I'd expected to run into the cannibal brats. Debris lined the shoulders of the road, dead cars, lean-to shelters, spaces and crawl ways within the rock. This was where you had to slow down and weave a little to avoid obstacles, and this was where they had set traps before. They'd built up their piles of wreckage higher, every kind of waste and chariots stripped down to bare steel bones. Others had tried to escape Scav Country on this path and met their doom.

My gut said this wasn't the end of it. There was more to come, there had to be. I couldn't feel my hands for some V8 damned reason. At least three were dead. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Shit. _Shit_.

I checked Dune again with a quick glance. Her face was streaked with red, but I couldn't tell if it was cuts from the broken glass or splash-back from Bones taking on a new hole in his meat. I shouldn't have gotten distracted. A pile of rubble burst apart, spending a wave of trash and scrap metals showering over our roof and under the tires. I'd later be thankful for an empty bladder.

It was a war chariot emerging from hiding under a mountain of garbage. A mustang, the boxy bodied ones of the final generation of cars born to the old world. She was heavily armored, side rails, tire shredders, the whole business and _more_. there were two collapsible rods folded back over the roof like the antennae of a cockroach. _Lightning rods._ I knew what these were, Joe used to have them at the top of the Skull Tower to keep storm lightning from wrecking the wind turbines. Electricity fucking _freaks_.

Dune shrieked, firing a shot on reflex. Her lead merely ricocheted off slotted steel side-window armor as the Mustang veered into us. She yipped again, bouncing against the door and then me as we were sideswiped and pushed toward the shoulder and wide open valley. Crap behind the seat crashed and slid all over, the weight of it making the impala fight me as I struggled to get our rig back under control and away from the edge.

This asshole was keen to take out our tires, grinding against us and trying to pull back enough to line up his blender metal against my rubber. Fuck, I had to match speed and keep his fender against the passenger door. I had shredders too but couldn't risk losing a tire here.

The Impala's tough skin tore like thin cloth against those rippers busy carving a ragged hole that light punched through on Dune's side. She braced her heel high on the door frame, back against my shoulder and making it hard for me to work the shifter as she frantically kept away from the metal carnage which would do far worse to flesh and bone. The Enfield cried out again, then clicked uselessly. Empty magazine. She scrambled to reach the glove box where her Beretta should be, I let go of the gear shift to get at the Glock on my hip. Our tire shredders must have kissed briefly, the sound of them demolishing each other like a hellish dual between two sets of saw blades was deafening. Dune rocked back against me again and lifted her back up weapon.

The steel window plate, just a foot from our shattered side glass, slid back. I saw them, a split second's good look at the driver. Long goatee, sleekly curved goggles, bullet casings in his stretched earlobes, the zigzag of a lightning bolt following the curve of muscle over his forearm.

Dune took aim, but the passenger leaning over the driver was faster than her, reaching out with a pistol on the end of his arm. He discharged his weapon before Dune could manage to aim and pull her trigger, she could only unload lead as fast as she could and hope to hit something. I only fired twice, my eyes damn near going crossed trying to watch them and the road.

My window shattered this time. A bullet must have passed right over her right ear and under my chin. Their window armor swiftly slid closed again as Dune kept squeezing off round after round. She must have hit something. New red slid with the wind across our ruined front glass.

Her final shot pinged off of the steel armor and they pulled away, but she did not brace herself as she should have and I couldn't pull her back into me in time. We were bashed from the left again as Dune tried to reload, sending the bullets in her hands flying all over and tinkling down to the floorboards between my 'd given up trying to disable the car, they were going to run us off the road! We'd roll down the skirt of the mountain to certain death.

I panicked, looked in the rearview glass to see that Crank had a storm rig of his own trying to pin him and the jeep against the wall. Further back you could hear the explosions of the two other bike teams trying to blow the tires off another combatant.

Had to push back, _had to_. Shirley was a heavy bitch but it was still a close match. The storm fucks were heavy too with all that armor on. Left, right, too many times my tires flirted with evil metal and the sheer drop on my right. Sparks flew and I felt the heat on my face as the guardrail on my side sheered off the paint and licked the naked steel underneath.

 _We're gonna die._

It hadn't been like this the last time I passed through here, not at all. This had turned into a full-blown war skirmish, and we were _not_ prepared for it.

Dune's head knocked the steering wheel as she tried to move and left a slick of red under my palm. Something about that, it made my fucking _teeth_ itch, sent high octane kamicrazy all through me. If I couldn't kill them, I'd grab the sun and drag the maniac to Valhalla with me.

I lost it, forgot where I was, roared my battle haka and veered for the edge as soon as I found a spot where the guardrail ran out. Then, hand over hand, cut the wheel, lurching the car off its front right tire and forcing her into the Mustang with as much force as can be gathered in the space between us. Our left headlight exploded in a glitter of glass, the fender of the Mustang inverted upon itself as they hit solid rock. We raked over their flank and passed them. The mustang's tail end, still moving with the forward momentum the car had, rotated around the impact point before flipping onto its roof. It sat halfway out on the blacktop.

Crank floored it and slammed the back bumper to spin the storm rig against the rock wall, clearing the way for those behind us.

We passed a fortified gate blocking off a fork in the road I never knew was there. The rest of the Storm Rigs fell back, turning off onto that fork. Side mirrors were gone, I had to turn to look out the back glass -also shattered- to see that they were chucking u-turns to go back, maybe for their wounded. I've never been down this road in the daylight, never noticed that gate. That must lead to whenever they lived and in their numbers, it must have been a fortress of some magnitude.

Their road was the only way out of Scav Country in any manner besides bike trails straight over the climbs. They knew that and set up their defenses to catch the stragglers, or maybe to keep the vengeful from trying to retaliate against them by slaughtering their young. I looked at the woman. She was alive, I was alive, and we'd be off this road in another fifteen minutes. I'd feel where I got knocked around later after the fight left my blood. We were bruised, battered, bleeding, but we'd _survived_.


	6. You should have told me

**-Slit-**

We rocketed out into the dunes but did not let off the guzz for at least a half-mile climbing over humps of sand. Crank signaled, flashing his headlights and laying on the horn too once we found a level path between mounts of shifting grit to drive down, headed North. He wanted me to stop? Now? Those socket lickers could be sending a team to hunt us down at that very moment for all we knew.

Crank accelerated, just tapping my rear bumper when I didn't break. He pulled back, skidding to a stop with or without us and the caravan followed his example. He was breaking the rules, we'd even discussed it early that morning. You fall behind, you stay behind, you wreck, you die, the convoy doesn't stop for anything. Was he trying to go back?

"Turn back," Dune croaked, then shrilled in my good ear as she grasped the steering wheel. "Turn back, Slit!"

It wasn't her demands because if I decided my foot was staying on the guzz, then she could sit on a lead pipe for all I cared. It was blood on her face and the oozing knot of swollen skull under her hair line that made me depress on the break pedal. We did turn back, and on the way my sense decided to return. Dune's leaking head reminded me that there were wounded. You didn't have wounded with Joe's war parties. You had boys who'd better do something quick to reach Valhalla or risk dying soft and unwitnessed. My War Boy brain was in sixth gear, needed to bring it back to neutral because this wasn't a war party, it never was. Dune's face painted hot rod red and my immediate desire to get whatever was bleeding stitched closed was a reminder that turning back for the doomed wasn't why Crank stopped. Everyone was parked haphazardly around Wilson's bus and before I even parked I could hear the screams.

I hadn't seen Feathers and Bones on their bike in a while. They'd fallen back into the protection of the caravan quickly after one of them got ventilated in the chest cage, I think.

Their bike was propped by the old man's Bloodshed on wheels. The sheila hanging out with Wilson lately must have pulled Bones in through the side doors before we even escaped the mountains. She stood there outside the cluster of watching people, sheet white, soaked down the front in too much red to be her own and still be standing.

Dune, she looked a few shades too pale as well. When we stopped, she said and did nothing. Only her right hand moved, trembling around her Beretta as she watched everyone through the ruined windscreen.

Carefully, because I even less sure than usual of what was going on in her head, I reached across the seat with my right hand to wrap it around the barrel, keeping it pointed away from vital bits of car and people. She didn't feel my thumb fold over hers and my middle finger searching for the safety. It was her scar hand after all.

When she finally felt me trying to remove the pistol from her grip, she jerked and her fingers squeezed around the grip tighter to keep it. She looked at me, drenched in sweat with eyes full of crazy, but not the kind I was used to from her. It was the look of anyone right after their first real fight in a moving vehicle. That had been a battle, and her head was still stuck in it. You'd see newly fledged Boys look like this, but this face only got them laughs from their older brothers and a clap on the shoulder or the back of the cranium before being left to their own devices until they had their head on right. Some chunder, others fight the urge to just curl up and sniffle like pups. Couldn't do that.

What the hell am I supposed to do for you? That was the thought slicing through my skull.

"It's over, let go. Let go Dune. There's nothing else to shoot at." I told her something that might not even be true, just to try and ease her back into the moment.

She let me take the pistol and I leaned over her to put the Beretta back in the glove compartment.

She didn't do badly, if she were a War Pup with the aftertaste of her first battle fresh in her mouth, she'd have been praised by her elder brethren. She lived, she didn't get herself killed like an idiot because she listened to me, for the most part. She made at least one kill and wounded another. She was always a killer, fuck, she considered killing me on the day we met, but that one kill on the mountain road was a kid. At that point in my half-life, I still didn't understand that praise couldn't make that okay. Too much of me was still the Immortan's good soldier.

I told her "you were chrome," and tried to grasp her shine hand, but she reached for the door handle without a word. Dune didn't respond to me, she just pushed open the door with trembling arms and limped her way toward the gathering of Crow Fishers around Wilson's rig.

I could hear the wails rise a decibel. It was three voices, Bones shrilling wildly, Wilson bellowing at others to hold him still, and Ardith collapsing against Dune in sobs that sound sub human. I got out, following mechanically to see what I already knew was happening. It's like standing back and watching a car fire. You could not look and know what was going on by the smell and sound of a crackling inferno incinerating everything in the car, but how can you not look. Crank and Featherknife were in the bus with Wilson, holding down their mate as he wroth.

The old organic waved something around over his head for everyone to see, a test strip to type blood. "LUCKY BASTARD IS AB POS! I'LL TAKE ANY VOLUNTEER PRONTO!"

He was lucky. Universal recipient. I saw Featherknife grab Crank's hand to press over the wound he was minding and shove his sleeve up his arm.

"Take all of it!" He roared at the doctor, only to be dismissed.

"You're already busy holding his juice in and bleeding yourself," Wilson looked back into the cluster of watching eyes and pointed at Eyeball, the biggest man in the group. "You look like you got a lotta blood. Get in."

Bones had stopped shrieking, now he was laying there in a pool of his own red and the only indication that he wasn't a corpse was the fact that he near convulsed in tremors as he stared blankly at the roof with blue ears and lips. Crank was gripping his left hand. Feathers was trying to stroke the sweat soaked hair out of his mate's already dead looking face.

If he lived, it would only be because he could take anyone's blood. High caliber rounds, they don't punch a hole and go straight through, they explode your meat like a stick of dynamite. Looked more like a shoulder hit than a chest wound, not that this boosted his chances. The socket of his right arm was ruined without any doubt. The organic mechanic back home wouldn't think twice about a wound like this. He'd snort his white powder and kick back to watch a man bleed out. At The Citadel, men missing a dominant hand are worthless. I was numb to the scene. I couldn't feel any shock or disgust or panic at the sight of Wilson pulling a bone saw from his bag to remove a surely fucked arm. Maybe I was kind of awed that Wilson valued the life of someone he hardly knew this much, but I was so accustomed to meeting people and soon watching them die that I hardly felt any pain at the idea of somebody I know going cold and stiff, let alone the kind of anguish Feathers and Ardith clearly did. Crank cared, obviously from the way he held a hand and stroked a dying face, but the calm in his features said everything of our kind. This isn't new to us and if you cut into the same scar enough, you lose feeling there.

I turned away, I might not feel much for the potential loss of Bones, but the look on the faces of Crank and Featherknife disturbed me. It hurt a lot more to look at them while Bones got bleeders pinched closed with clamps to prepare for a saw hacking off something only hanging on by some tendons and grizzled meat. I looked around for Dune, making my way around the bus toward the front, following the sound of ragged sobs. She was there, holding Ardith up by the arms as the woman held her head and threatened to simply fall into the sand between the Nutter's boots. I didn't see her brood anywhere. Where were the pups?

I looked for them now, finding the old women and Heta by Crank's Truck. The door was open, I couldn't hear the pups but I could see Heta in the passenger seat holding Red in her lap while another leaned into the back toward where all the clan's few children were huddled together, probably shook up and freaking out. Heta turned and pulled away a scrap of cloth from the pup's mouth. More blood, his mouth was full of it and dribbled from an ugly hole though skin under his lower lip. He looked freakishly unfazed by the fact that he'd bitten through his own lip with his puppy teeth. I wanted to vomit.

I didn't know where to stand, what to do, and the longer I stood still, the more I noticed pain. My side hurt. My left elbow hurt. No, it wasn't the worst pain I've ever felt, not by a long shot, but with the nitro in my blood burning off fast it felt like I was being stabbed up my arm between the bands of muscle and into bone with a hot screwdriver. I couldn't lift my arm, and the thought of it broken sent acid splashing through my guts. If it was broken I couldn't drive effectively.

I rolled up the sleeve to look, praying to V8 and cursing at the feel of it. Just the pressure of the rolled sleeve against it felt like hot welding sparks climbing up my bloodstream into my neck and back down into my finger tips. It wasn't bruised, didn't look swollen either, no gash in it... But it didn't look right either. Something got fucked inside.

"That looks dislocated," a voice said.

When I looked up from the wreckage of my arm, I found that old bat who'd been following Wilson around since we all met up. She was still soaked in red, still pale, but her mouth wasn't hanging open and her wrinkled face had settled into something more composed.

She reached for it with her liver spotted hands, still stained with body fluid. I started to turn away. I didn't want her screwing with it. I didn't know her, didn't care if she enjoyed playing doctor, I'd rather wait till Wilson's meat mending table opened up. Her face screwed to show her insult.

"You give me that arm or I'll give you a bruise to really worry about! Give it, Child," she squawked like a pissed off crow, and something about the fact that she called me child stunned me long enough that by the time I tried to pull away again, she already had her hands on me.

"Sit, Boy," she commanded, and the only reason I listened was because I didn't want her to decide twisting my fucked up arm was a good idea.

She called someone else over, a younger woman who still had at least four thousand days on me. I could curse them all I wanted, the older and heavier of the two didn't give a shit, she simply turned and backed into me to sit on my chest. The other squatted over my good leg and started pulling off my gauntlet. I knew better than to punch the hag in the back of the head, Dune's stories had left their mark on me, but that's not to say I didn't start pulling the back of her shirt and jacket to try choking her off me with her own collar. They gripped me in all wrong ways, made me scream too. There was a wet crunch and a wave of fire rolling up my arm. They left me there, sitting in the the sand, cradling my arm and shouting every kind of curse, even some that made no sense. The old one only bothered to mention that I should put the arm in a sling now if I could, and that I was somehow lucky that it wasn't completely dislocated. I just spat at her as she left to go torture someone else. She and her helper were the ones doing patch work on others while Wilson was busy. They were no more tender with Red than they were with me, a fucking two year old with a hole in his face. He'd been calm before, but as they harshly held his head still to push a needle and catgut through his skin he started up screeching. Careless witches. His mother must have been torn out of her hysteria by his crying, running to take him from Heta and curse them too before being forced to help them hold him still long enough to leave him with two ugly stitches and one shitty memory. My right cheek tingled, and I hoped he was too young to remember that.

If nothing else, the crones were efficient. With a minute to process whatever the fuck just happened, I wondered if the maniac being thrown into me any one of four times during the fight was what knocked my bones out of alignment. Could be.

I put my gauntlet and blade back on and still holding onto my damn arm as if it was going to fall off, I got up. I expected to find Dune following Ardith like a shadow, but she was standing apart from everyone just a car length from me and chewing at the bend of her trigger finger. She must have been watching when the hags were yanking my arm around, but she didn't look all there either. I think any other time, she might have torn somebody up with her teeth for grabbing on me, but I don't believe anyone was at the controls up in her skull.

She only lifted her chin to follow the movement when I stepped closer and reached out with the arm that didn't ache. I wanted to see that knot on her skull. Someone had cleaned it up, but it didn't look like the knick over it needed a stitch. Nothing bleeds like the scalp. The rest of the red must have been from... Shit. Maybe if she wasn't splattered in someone else's blood she wouldn't be standing there with a blank stare.

The toe of her right boot dragged as I towed her along by the arm toward the Impala, she wasn't correcting her existing limp. Trying to get her to sit in the passenger side was interesting, she was stiff and pushing against my shoulders and the frame of the door to refuse it, so I gave up on that and started trying to dry scrub the viscera from her face with a greasy rag. It was clotted into chunks on her hair. She'd have to get somebody to chew it out with their teeth, and it would probably be me. Disgusting, but not the worst thing I've had to do.

She squirmed and tried to turn her face away like Ard's milk drinker did whenever she tried to feed him something he didn't want. Dune was away, come back later, leave a message. Shit, This was what I was afraid would happen. It might not be the crazies, though. I had to rule out worst case scenarios.

"You feel concussed?" I tried. She didn't say anything, but she looked at me in the eye before shaking her head. Well, she looked like she was crawling back into her own head, at least there was that.

Her left hand slithered up between us and she extended a finger to poke at my face. I thought she was only having some kind of weird moment as she crept back toward sanity, until the touch of her finger stung like being jabbed with a rusty upholstery tack. My natural reaction was to jerk my head back and curse, but her right hand shot forward to catch me at my dust scarf and stop me from going anywhere.

"Ey, EY! You got glass in your face!" She finally said, in her usual volume, in her typical over the top tone. I had her back.

If I hadn't been a War Boy once, being told I had glass in my face might've inspired some kind of terror. I'm sure anyone can guess what the imagination could do with those words and no mirror to check for yourself, but this wasn't the first time I had glass in me and it wouldn't be the last.

I spent the next half hour sitting there while the nutter picked at my face with the tip of one of my own knives to coax shards of glass out of my right cheek and forehead. They were tiny, small enough to fit a few on your fingernail with room to spare. They must have gotten blown into me when that bullet missed us and took our window instead. Door glass is so much harder to replace, that was all I could think about while she dug at me, not the fact that I was lucky not to be blinded. We sat in silence once she was finished, her in the passenger seat, me behind the wheel, the glass from my face sitting on the dash in a tiny, pink tinted pile. We watched the others, some milling around, others getting what you could argue was treatment from the one called Ellie, the same one who yanked on my arm, which I had yet to fashion a sling for or even decide if I was going to do anything more for it.

Dune hugged her kneecaps under her chin and buried her face in them when she started to sniffle. Still, I didn't get it, I couldn't comprehend how she could be so tore up over that skirmish. We've been through crap before, just as dangerous but on foot. I expected her to be furious about the parts I left out, not wasting salt and cola like a pup.

I turned so I could reach over with the arm that wasn't fucked up, tried things I'd figured out work to stop her eyes leaking all over. I let my right hand fall over the back of her head and stroked down her neck to her shoulder. She was supposed to lean in, the way she always does and the way I do when I got the same treatment from her, but she tensed instead. Dune pulled back, away from me, and turned toward her ruined door. She grasped my wrist with her scar hand, then pushed me away slowly.

"You should have told me. Should'a told me everything."

She wouldn't look at me when she spoke and in first no less. My guts clenched miserably. Damn it. Why did this hurt so much? I had to get out of the car, didn't feel right to be there within reach of Dune after what she said and shoving me off. I wanted to hide somewhere, but there was nowhere to hide and I still felt compelled to stay close and keep an eye on her in case she started losing it.

I might have been standing there for an hour, I'm not sure. The nutter was curled up on her side across the seat with the doors open while I sat on the bonnet, thoughts starting to fester. Maybe she was right, but I can't know if telling everyone the whole truth would have done us any favors. If they'd voted to avoid the road all together, there might have been heavier losses to starvation. Screwed if you do, screwed if you don't.

The crowd around Wilson's rig had slowly dispersed. I didn't see Crank or Featherknife so I assumed they were still inside with the old organic mechanic and Bones behind a torn curtain drawn over the space between the wide open doors. People were just sitting in their rigs, and faintly with my good ear I overheard hushed conversations and intermittent cries for the dead.

I looked back to the maniac in my car. She was still laying there, looking every bit done with this trip. Fuck me if anyone expected this to be easy, and if they did, then that was Crank's failure, not mine. I warned the nut well enough. Felt like shit to be right, though.

I moved around the open door to lean into the cab and check her, but heard boots kicking through the sand as someone walked over. I thought it was Crank, so I turned and opened my mouth to say something that might've been important. I can't remember what I was going to say, the memory fails right where Featherknife caught me between the eyes with his right fist.

I didn't see that coming, and wasn't aware enough between when he clocked me and when I hit the ground to do anything about it. Left arm was useless, head was useless too. Felt like I was being blown around in a sand storm, bashed all over with flying debris.

When my senses decided to work again, all I saw were blurred shapes flailing wildly. Dune was howling like a feral. The first clear image I got was Featherknife grabbing her by the collars of her vest to toss her aside so he could come at me again. This time, still too knocked out of my own meat to put up a real fight, I tried throwing my good leg up to stop him, caught him across the jaw weakly with my right hand. Dune was pulling out his hair trying to pry him off.

Crank, finally, appeared to call off the mad dog. Feathers was a short bloke, maybe five foot six, but he's wide built and thick boned. Heavy little fuck. Crank had to reach under his arms and put him in a full nelson to stop his pummeling fists from flattening my face. I had a mouth full of blood and enough awareness to realize I had a couple broken teeth by the time Crank had gotten the leverage to haul him off me. He kicked and screamed and slung slurs.

"YOU KNEW! YOU KNEW! WAR BOY TRASH! MURDER MACHINE! I HOPE YOU GET LUMPED!" He screeched as Crank pinned him to the door of the covered pickup.

Dune was pulling at me to get me off the sand and trying to push me into the cab of our rig with nothing but her mass and determination. She probably thought I'd retaliate, and I might have if she weren't practically in my lap in her effort to keep me in the car. My eyes were locked on Featherknife while he argued with Crank. When he trusted taking a swing on the War Geezer, I almost got out again in spite of the roar of every aching bruise he left on my head. He started blubbering, much like Ard, and slumping against Crank as if his legs had gone boneless. I watched as the older man ushered Feathers back toward Wilson's bus as I tongued at my broken teeth. I already had a few missing before, chewing teeth pulled when I was a fledgling because they started rotting out of my head. Wisdom teeth had migrated halfway into those empty slots in my face later but were always crooked and never came together right. That fucker had busted out the last three teeth good for chewing on the left side of my skull. Bastard. I still had my cutter teeth up front, but still. This was going to hurt if I let the shattered teeth go for too long. Hurt now, later it could get bad enough to try sucking off the barrel of a rifle. I can take broken bones. Broken teeth? Fuck that.

Dune was pulling open my lips and trying to look inside, wondering out loud if Wilson was any good at, and I quote "Yanking chompers and installing falsies". I doubt it. The man called Tooth Fairy back home made a living out of teeth and his work was still widely known to be hit or miss. No one particularly enjoyed paying him and his chair equipped with every kind of restraint a visit.

My outrage cooled and gave way to wondering if Bones had died, which could explain Featherknife losing his shit and finding someone to blame for it. I suddenly understood his name. Soft and innocuous as feathers most times, as hard and dangerous as a knife other times.

Crank could be seen leaning into the bus, nodding and talking. He turned his head and gestured at someone calling out from the top of a nearby bill. I couldn't make out distinct words, head was still too scrambled. He was soon headed our way, so I leaned out and moved to stand but Dune stopped me from getting up. Can't figure why, maybe she thought another brawl would break out. Fuck, Feathers had a V8 damned bazooka for an arm. If he wasn't so rusty with his aim he could make a fair lancer.

The former repair boy rested a forearm on the door frame and leaned in. I opened my mouth before he did.

"Your man cark it?" I never had to soften up words for Crank.

"Nah," he shook his head with his reply. "Still bleeding, though. Featherknife, uh... He's sorry about your face."

"Whatever man," Not that I would have accepted any sappy apology in the first place but the fucker could have delivered that message himself. I was weirdly relieved the other one wasn't a corpse, though.

"Your medic wants to poke around more to pinch off blenders. He's pretty tore up. An' the lookout says we got a Buzzard scout circling, but keeping distance."

I was about to pull in a breath and respond to that but the woman beat me to it.

"Scare um off. Long as we ain't close to their nest or on one o' their roads, they don't get nasty during the day. They're night feeders. We lose the scout, hunker down, shut off the lights. That's how they hunt, the light."

Crank smirked a bit. "Right on the scrap. Slit?"

I sucked on my bleeding gums and nodded with my hands thrown up, regretting lifting the left too high. That was pretty much what I was going to suggest, although my advice would have been to blow the rust fucker to hell, not spook it off.

"I'm taking point. Think so or not, I know these dunes better than you do, mate. Barks an' I can can give the Buzzard a quick chase. You get everybody formed up. An' have your Doc check out your head."

I only bothered to nod again, and in forty minutes we were ready to move. The Buzzard hardly needed to be persuaded to move on. The moment the jeep and the pickup climbed over a hill headed their way, they sped off North toward their deep fortress under the sand. Wilson said I didn't seem concussed but my face was more heinous than usual. He also told me he'd pull my teeth later. I'd probably take him up on that to avoid Tooth Fairy at the Citadel.

We stopped in the trough of two high dunes to the West of the mountains. Head lamps were shut down and Wilson's bus was covered by tarps and anything that could be spared to contain the only light we allowed to remain so that he could work to stop Bones from leaking out all his life juice. If he didn't get all his bleeds plugged soon, Dune and I would be the next ones dragged in for donation.

We were back to throwing tarps over the front end of the car and tying it down or shutting the doors on it to keep the cold from gusting through broken glass. We sat in cold darkness, waiting to be told it was time to move on or bury a corpse. I was considering figuring out how to glue down cut squares of tarp over the windows so we wouldn't freeze with wind whipping through the cab while we drove.

Dune still said little and avoided so much as looking at me, not that we could even see each other while we sat layered in every scrap of clothes we had and wrapped like moth cocoons in blankets. The only thing to remind me that I wasn't alone in the car was the tremble in the seat under my ass every time she shivered. She was still wrecked.

There was this clicking and huffing that faintly reached my good ear. It took me a minute to figure out what she was doing.

"Your teeth wouldn't be chattering if you were over here," I offered, prepared to pull her into my too thin sheet of supposed blanket with me. She only grunted, making no move to accept that offer.

It's a special kind of fucked up feeling to have a shitty decision to make that you know you'll hate yourself for later and taking that choice because it was the right choice. It's a much worse feeling when that shitty right choice hurts people you didn't want hurt, and you knew they'd be hurt, but you'd rather them hurt than fuckin' dead. After that, it's all a matter of seeing how deep the hole you're digging gets before you figure out you need a ladder. Trying not to sigh irritably makes you sound tense anyway.

"You have to know I didn't tell you for a reason, because you would never have picked up your gun at all if you knew, and we'd be dead," I spat at her, and a breath later she'd exploded out of her wrap of cloth to batter me with cold, open palms.

She was crying, I felt hot drops falling out of her face onto my hand when I tried to push her back at the sternum so she couldn't bite or knock my already screwed up arm. She was throwing her hands at me and howling in a rage too, seemed like she always leaked out the eyes when she was pissed.

"He was a baby," she kept shouting over and over.

I'm not to blame, not completely. The only thing I did was not tell her the whole truth to protect her from it and get her down that road, I knew it wasn't all my fault, but that night it was just easier to let her blame me for the dead kid. She got tired quickly, a lot faster than any other night. She was black and blue from bouncing all over the seat and dash and I hadn't faired better through the day either.

As her slapping hands lost strength and will to lift again, she snorted back the snot running out of her face and started crawling onto me. At first I thought it was another attack, but her limp arms did nothing to counter my pushing to keep her teeth away from my bleeders, she just slumped and folded herself up to pull on her hair and let out one pitiful sob.

I could easily shove her off me, be as nasty and foul as she'd been since we escaped the mountains, but I guess I was selfishly pleased she wanted to be touched now. I pulled her up, winced at the hot jolt racing up my arm, and let her use me as a mattress across the seat. She stopped her sniffing and pathetic mewing, instead growling at me with my shirts and vest clenched in her fists.

"I'm still rippin' mad at you," she told me, but pushed her face into my neck where it was warm and did not protest when I held onto her too. I got us comfortable. The foot of the metal leg was hanging out of the broken passenger window and my boot was propped on the dash while I held the little demon and she slid her hands under my shirt for the warmth. I pulled her blanket around us since she was pushing up my shirt and wasting all the heat those layers afforded me. I hate admitting that getting soft makes some things easier, it does.

Dune fell asleep in my arms. Holy shit, we're still alive. We'd be at The Citadel in less than a day, if we could get moving any time soon. I wouldn't have to worry about carking it and leaving the loon alone again. As long as she was with her kind, Ardith and the crow fishers, and wherever they were, she wouldn't be on her own ever again. That's what I'd wanted, wasn't it? The idea of going back myself? That was complicated, and I wasn't sure how I felt about V8, Furiosa, Valhalla, or Nux anymore. I was more interested in immediate needs.

Listening to the woman sprawled on me breathe, waking her just enough to shake her out of a shitty dream a time or two, knowing Dune wasn't even angry anymore because she put her mouth on mine when she came out of her nightmare all needy and sloppy. My neck was going to hurt like hell in the morning but we needed all of this.


	7. All Good Things

**-Slit-**

We stayed all through the night. Crank stopped by the tarped up window to peel back the barrier against the wind and speak into the hole in the dark.

"He's alive, needs sleep. Everyone's staying put," he said

Incredible that a whole crew, or clan, would stop for a single man. Everyone else's bruises and bumps were minor by comparison. I'd never known a grouping of people willing to shoulder the risk of sitting idle for one man whose chances are slim to none. I spent a while thinking about that after Crank left to go back to Wilson's bus where I assumed the rest of his family were. I thought about the word family too, and how sometimes it seemed like Crank wasn't Crank anymore. I called him by his repair boy name out of habit but maybe the pedestrian name he'd taken fit better now because he really wasn't who he used to be.

Crank always had hard words and warned Nux and me that being soft got you harder knocks. He didn't even tolerate us sleeping in the same bunk and Nux always bawled about it but... Crank was the one saddled with us when we got dumped on Tank's crew.

He was maybe seven thousand days of age at the time, give or take a few hundred. I remember being that age, not knowing jack shit while believing I knew every damn thing. He had to chew my grub for me and drip feed me cola when my throat hole tried to swell closed from the infection of my shredded face. He even managed to get Organic, who was only an assistant in the bloodshed at the time, to come in secret to flush out the festering flesh with cola and liquid flames. V8 knows what he had to trade the gluttonous letch for that. I don't want to know. I vaguely remember the night I was a hair's width from burning out a quarter-life. Covered by a wet sheet and feeling like I was freezing to death rather than roasting alive. I was convinced for years that the hand on my head and prayers to V8 along with every god of the Wretched pantheon had been only a feverish dream. It was Crank, I'm sure of that now when I recall his smiling face the next day. It was the kind of smile that hides countless things, all the stuff our kind aren't supposed to think or feel. If I was in Bones' place instead, would Crank demand that the clan stopped for me? I think maybe he would, and that maybe he was always hiding Phil under the rough exterior named Crank.

Dune kept me stuck under her through the night, which was fine. V8 my head felt like it was being crushed in a hydraulic press and my arm like it was being twisted off, but the maniac wasn't raving or whimpering. Crank was right when he told me at the harvest hoedown that he thought the nutball and I were two losers hovering just over and just under thirty who do nothing but cuddle. Yeah, we eventually got around to the naked games he was so damn concerned about but I could probably have gone on just doing my best impression as the Loon's mattress and remained satisfied with that. The paint trading hadn't actually changed anything. It wasn't the world-shattering revelation I was trying to avoid. Screwing around with no threads on just feels great and we probably could have been happily defiling each other a long time ago in place of bickering over dumb shit out of boredom. That's my only regret over it.

Dune interrupted the thoughts in my skull, something she's always been good at, by shifting about and pulling her knee up into my crotch. Couldn't help the involuntary grunt and choked cursing. She was out, that wasn't intentional but count on her to crush a ball bearing in her sleep. If you don't have those bits, imagine being punched in the gut when you have to take a shit but your grit grinder is also trying to turn itself inside out. I sat up, adjusted my junk, and pulled her up with me as I recovered. She muttered and asked what was wrong. I told her and, almost sweetly, she said it served me right. Mean little still turned to put her rump on the cold seat so she could reach up my shirt with the shine hand and appreciate how tense a man's gut will get after having the fun stuff abused.

I had a dumb thought as I pulled the imp back into my lap and buried my face in her hair to snort up her stench. Nux never got to have this, did he? Not too long ago I'd have mocked him for it, and a day before we met the Crow Fishers, I had definitely imagined myself laughing at his ghost about it. It felt cruel now.

It had been one of those nights, my head was too full of rust to get any sleep. Dawn would arrive soon, there was the faintest band of light glowing along the jagged peaks of the mountains when I turned my head to look out the back window.

"Tell Dune about the green at The Citadel, Ducky. Please? I just... I've had enough of the color red lately."

I thought about home, garden terraces, and patches where the same crops as always got planted and rotated. All the shit and death produced in the War Tower got recycled there, then what grew out of our filth and fester was sold or traded for bullets and guzz. She didn't ask about how we kept the green fed and what we got back for it through trade, though.

"It's green," I huffed to get a reaction.

"Arse," She slurred, jabbing my navel with a cold finger and getting her hand slapped for it. She snorted her tired laugh, resting her head against my collarbone as she spoke "What kinds, Slit?"

I squeezed her with my right arm, pulling in the aching left and tucking my hand against the warm softness of her belly. She's always so soft, and lately, I luxuriated in her feel in my hands.

"Leafy ruffage, mostly. There's root stuff, more potato. Wheat, not a ton of it, though. That went to Gas Town, they'd send back cooking dust for hard tack. Red things. We never got to touch um, though. They'd get traded for real chrome stuff, engines even." I told her as she fidgeted against my fingers caressing the plush rolls of skin she had when she was curled like this.

"Red things?" she asked, curiosity rising in her voice alongside wakefulness.

I nodded, cringing at how even that made my skull pound, "Yeah, first a yellow flower, then a little green button, then a shiny round red thing."

"That sounds like tomatoes!" Dune chirped, heard her lips smack too.

"Must've been real chrome in your mouth if a handful of those got you trucks of scrap and a few more got you the truck, too. Imperators never let us near 'em. You ever had one?" I had to know, even if it was only vicariously, what all the fuss over them was about.

"Yeah! All the time! We had a problem with 'em around our house when I was a sprout, they kept comin' up and then if we didn't pick fast enough, fruit would fall and more would come up. Mum had to give 'em away. Rus, Flick, an' Dune got stuck eatin' the overripe ones to get rid of um before they could rot. By the time somebody came up with the bright idea to cull off some and make a big batch of soup for a potluck, we were already sick of 'em..."

She kept on chattering, tried to explain the flavor too, but it was lost on me.

"Must be nice, coming up like that," I said, not bothering to hide the jealousy over it.

"I'd kill a man for one now," she sighed.

"Nah, you're too soft," l declared getting her back for stabbing me in the belly button with her icy digits by sliding my middle fingertip into hers and giving it a wiggle.

She yipped, snatching me at the wrist quick as greased lightning. That sent hot lead up my arm and the moment the struggle broke I turned away from her and cradled the angry limb. Dune was immediately doing what she does even better than shooting, coddling.

"Oh, poor Duck. You really should have that in a sling," she hummed at me. I was finally starting to catch it when she treats me like her pup rather than- nevermind.

"In a sling, like it's a brat that shits itself instead of my shifter hand. No thank you."

"I'll do your shifting or else that arm really will shit out," she was talking in first, which meant she wasn't taking my refusal.

Dune crawled into the back and rummaged. Crank arrived at the window again just as she was tying a wide strip of my old bandages around me and trying to get the gauntlet off my wrist, which wasn't happening. He pulled back the tarp and leaned in to look over the seat into the back where we were.

"Talked to Heta, were moving out in a half hour. Gotta talk to you for a minute once yer done on that tit, gettin' babied."

I growled and lifted my right fist at the insult, willing and more than able to punch the geezer between the eyes if he lingered too long. He coughed a single chuckle and went away just fast enough to avoid a set of knuckles. Dune was muttering and groaning, turning all red in the face. Bones must be doing alright, though, if Crank had regained his perverse brand of humor.

Clumsily, with a wrecked arm and only one leg, I began climbing back over the seat to step out. Dune leaned over the backrest to grab at me, pulling me back with her hands clenched around my scarf. I started to complain but she cut me off by briskly mashing her lips over mine. Bizarre. We exchanged a look. Unsaid questions and unsaid answers. She looked like a two-day-old dried turd but I guessed that she wasn't pissed off at me anymore. I grabbed her by the back of the head and gave it back, it felt kind of like getting the last word in, then I got out.

Crank was standing apart from the others near Wilson's bloodshed bus, watching as Featherknife lifted Bones out of the back like a pup. He was limp, already pale skin had taken on a gray color, and right arm missing at the shoulder under layers upon layers of crude bandaging. Looking like that while missing his boots and bone encrusted jacket, the only thing which visually gave away his identity was the red-blond hair and the man carrying him to Crank's truck. Crank merely smoked from his pipe and watched on. The bruise in the crook of his elbow told me that he'd given up blood, too.

I didn't come any closer until Bones was laid in the bed of the truck with the pups. The old black thumb eyed me as I stood next to him.

"How bad is that arm?" he asked.

"Trashed for weeks, Loon's gonna have to work the gear shift," I answered.

He did no more than grunt in understanding.

"People lost family, Slit. They're pretty rough,"

"It's not like they didn't know what could happen, right?" I quizzed him, to make sure he hadn't implied to them that it would be easy.

"O'course they knew. Made sure of it. Doesn't mean they aren't hurtin',"

I didn't want to look at his face, I was sure he was feeling something or other too, so I drew circles in the sand with the foot of my metal leg.

"Ain't the same as back home," I muttered.

"Might have been different if we'd spared the witnessing and permitted a little hurtin'," Crank gritted tersely and my guts churned up acid even if I knew it wasn't me he was cross with. "They're in mourning. Pups are getting split up to be with their parents since the worst is over. Couple hours, Pup. Then, we gotta make that trip on a bike with the white flag."

I didn't speak, didn't have much to say for all the things I already knew

"Haven't seen home in so long, boy. Being up front, I never expected to see it again," he said, voice soft now.

"Neither did I," I wasn't sure I wanted to go where this discussion could take us, so I changed the subject after catching myself anxiously plucking out threads of the sling my arm hung in. "Are we getting in formation any time soon?"

"Yeah, get out front. I'll be in the jeep with Barks and we're taking point ahead of you. Ard's driving the truck and keeping near the middle with Wilson and Heta."

Alright, I knew what I needed to know and felt sufficiently awkward about everyone else's loss to wish not to speak for a while. I somehow felt to blame for everything up until that point. It's different than riding with brothers. There's no congratulatory "witness" for the slain, only second-hand grief.

Dune wasn't in the Impala when I came to pull off the tarp and stuff it into the back. I found her talking to Ardith as I pulled past the truck and called her back in. The two parted with an embrace, they did that a lot. Others were shouted at and directed by Dune standing up through the roof hatch after she was told what order rigs were to be lined up. Once the spiny Jeep took its place in front of us with Crank at the wheel, we moved on.

Dune did as she said she would, operating the gear stick for me since she insisted that my arm had to stay slung against my chest. She was a bit lazy about it though, head in my lap and left hand only lifting to do its job when I roused her with a shake of the stump in its leather socket. Caught her breathing like she was asleep a few times, too.

I wound up pulling my arm out of the dumb sling and resting my hand on her head instead. She was all bruised up and still had blood in her hair. I didn't want to wake her, so I put up with the sharp stabs in my elbow every time I had to shift gears. It wasn't that big a deal, a few more hours and it could sit in the damn sling as long as it had to, hopefully.

She was spooning her rifle, not loaded at the moment of course. I watched her whenever there was no hill of unstable sand to climb and no turns to negotiate on the sparse roads Crank found. Maniac sand witch. Murderous cannibal scavenger. Pain in the ass. Crank had his brats and his clan to make this trip for, at that moment I quit denying that everything I'd done in the last six months had been for the lunatic and no one else. I wasn't going to the Citadel for any reason except to get her out of Scav Country for good. I had no intention of talking her back to the cave unless I absolutely had to. Maybe I was concussed. That question Ardith asked me more than a month ago popped into my head at random. 'Do you love her?' she'd demanded to know. Shit, do I? I didn't give a damn what happened to me, but Dune- Is that what it is? When your own bullshit stops mattering next to someone else's bullshit?

One of the clan women called out and I looked into the rear glass. Featherknife was speeding out from behind the bus and pulling ahead to the driver side window of the Jeep. The noise woke Dune, she sprung upright and clutched the Enfield close. We both heard what he bellowed to Crank, he didn't need to call out at us a moment later.

"Mack truck and pursuit cars! Same tags as the ones in the mountains!"

Dune, groggy but wide-eyed, was already popping the full magazine in place and putting a round in the chamber. I had a blood pump trying to hammer its way out of me. I knew it. I knew those sandstorm worshipping fucks wouldn't just let us go.

The formation tightened up uselessly, they were scattered the moment they were threatened by the plow blade on the nose of that quarry hauler the lightning lovers had. How could they have that?! The only place I'd ever seen one of those monsters on tires was The Bullet Farm. They made Scrotus' Land Mover look anemic.

Things moved slow, sluggish, my skull meat took its time to digest what was happening. It couldn't stuff the dread into a neat box to put away. That truck, the massive beast with an engine bigger than my whole car, wasn't swerving to crush the Crow Fisher convoy which had parted, almost as if in a hypnotic vehicular dance, around it. It was racing ahead, it was coming for the Impala.

"SEATBELT! SEATBELT, DUNE!" Who was that screaming? Oh, it was me.

Forget the convoy, there was no space inside me but the horror gripped instinct to avoid being rammed by that. I broke away, stupid, wove left and right to keep that thing from having a still target to accelerate at. We were falling back, the caravan raced ahead and my brain switched back on to remind me that keeping up with the herd was just as important as not getting crushed. My ears rang, Dune was shooting behind us from the hatch. She ducked back inside to reload, screeching at me to steady up as she stuffed her last three rounds into the mag.

"PUT YOUR FUCKING SEATBELT ON! DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH!?" I howled, unbelievably enraged that she didn't have the sense to know that if we got hit by this she'd be ejected from the car like a shell casing from her rifle.

I'm an idiot. I was too busy fighting the psycho to get her strapped in and trying to catch up with the others to notice what was casting a shadow over us on my blind side. Last second, I turned my head and saw, swerved left and almost rolled the Impala to avoid being crushed under a tire two men high.

I saw the face of the man behind the wheel, barely heard him screaming, and recognized him instantly.

"YOU CRIPPLED MY GUNNER!" Raged the very same demon that had been behind the wheel of the Storm Mustang on the Storm Chaser's road.

I locked up as the mining truck fell back, felt bile rise up my throat. V8, Nux, Crank, help me!

"SLIT! SLIT, LOOK OUT!"

Dune's screams, her terror, was the last thing I heard before we hit a high drift of sand. For a precious second, we flew. Everything has to come back down sometime, even birds. The grill and ram bar hit the dirt first, then my face hit the steering wheel.


	8. Bad Seeds

**-Phil-**

I saw the Impala spring into the air in the rear view, then come crashing back down. My heart leaped up into my mouth. Damn it, boy. He'd panicked behind the wheel, I know he did, because when I taught him and Nux to drive so long ago he always lost control under too much pressure. Slit was never made for driving. Hand over hand on the wheel, I meant to turn back and scoop up the pup and the girl, but that's not what happened. Barks had pressed the barrel of his pistol under my left ear.

"You mad? Or just stupid?!" was what he'd asked, but how that translated up in my nugget was different. I heard fuck them.

I had no choice but to straighten out and point the grill North, still watching in the rear view as that ore hauler pulled in close to where Slit had wrecked.

"That's my kid!" I remember arguing, in the heat of the moment forgoing denial of it. It would have felt the same if it had been Sump, or Trellis, or Red, or Nux. "Already lost one! Get that fucking thing off me! I'm going back!"

"The hell you are!" he said, gripping the wheel to make sure I didn't try turning again.

I couldn't see the wrecked Impala in the mirror anymore, all I saw were the hostiles surrounding the old doctor's bus and separating him from the convoy.

The same ache I felt when Slit told me that Nux was gone, it doubled, then tripled. Lost my pup, lost Dune too. Prayer wouldn't be enough. I looked at Barks, he looked at me. We had our reasons, but we both knew what would happen at the next stop when there was no gun jabbing at my earlobe

I might kill you. "Witness."

 **-Dune-**

Everything in the back slung itself forward, the belts stopped me from hitting the dash too, but the flying debris and our own flailing limbs pelted us. I had no sense of up or down, or of what had even happened. It was too fast, too terrible, it felt like being picked up and shaken to death by a titanic beast. The world stopped quaking, tried to right itself, but everything was upside down. I smelled guzz and I tasted blood.

I hung by the lap belt, Slit was crumpled under -or over?- the wheel and caught by his leg in his pedal mechanism. I dropped onto my head in the mess below once I undid the belt. I called the war fodder, pulled at him, but he didn't respond. Red dribbled from a deep cut through his left eyebrow and another over his chin.

"Ducky, n- C'mon, don't be dead! Please don't be dead!" shouting did nothing to rouse him.

I couldn't figure out the damn pedal thing. I tore it all out of the floor boards in a fit of urgency. I had to get us out. What if Shirley exploded? Cars can do that sometimes, can't they? I didn't want to be inside if she decided to sing her swan song. I pushed him over toward the driver side window, he slumped like a corpse. Sweet Goddess, please spare him.

I had to come out first and in the horror of it all, feeling naked and in danger, I remembered the day I found him. It felt the same, dragging his dead weight out of a wreck. This time there was no smiles and cooing or dumb crazy words to say, only strained squeals and begging for him to do anything to let me know he hadn't risen up out of his flesh to leave me with a still warm body.

His boot heel and the still attached pedal pulley on his metal foot dragged as I got us clear of the car, hugging him tight under the arms. Drops of red smeared the sand in a trail, it wasn't just his. My damned teeth had bit off a nice chunk of my inner cheek. Blood pooled under my tongue and ran down my chin onto the crown of his head. It just lolled around, his noggin. Was his neck broken? I dropped him on his back in the sand.

"Slit! Slit! Ducky?!" I shouted, practically astride him as I shook him by the collar.

I even began slapping his shoulders before remembering to search for a pulse with my good fingers pressed to his neck just under the jaw. Blood was still pumping, not dead yet, but that meant little. I couldn't lose him, not so soon.

"C'mon, aw Duck- Lady of seeds! You give him back! I'll give up ever laying eyes on a green thing again if you c'n give him back to me! Please? Fuck! I'll eat sand if I have to!"

He whimpered, then coughed a phlegmy wad of spittle out into my face. Oh! The relief! My hands found his red streaked face, cradled his head and praised him.

"Aw, good man! Good! Good! Good! Dune's got you, Ducky," I told him, even if he might not have heard anything but nonsense in his rattled skull. I even kissed that bloody ugly mouth. Good, War Boy, good.

I heard slapping, nah, clapping hands. An applause?

"What a show! I gotta admit, you had me on the edge of my seat! The drama! Now, that'sentertainment! I like you!" It was the driver of the earth hauler, and the armored up mustang that had been flipped a day ago.

He moved in a slow circle around us. His motions were lackadaisical, unconcerned, which didn't match his catty grin and still clapping hands. In my panic for Slit, I had completely forgotten the reason we wrecked in the first place. He must have been watching the whole time. Another vehicle pulled in, the Storm lunatic's face fell to a stoney glare as a man coated in yellow dust for some reason leaned out of an armored little ford model. A Fiesta or one of those little shits that'll put your knees up by your ears.

"We've got the doctor," the stranger in the pursuit car called out.

The man standing before me, distracted, began barking orders. The son of a wire licking bitch, he had the gall to ignore us now? Think a Scav that can still stand or even crawl isn't awful and quick? Dune'll turn you to worm food.

I clawed at Slit's belt, yanking off the knife which always hung from a carabineer on his belt loop. I was quick, a mean, meanscavenger. I dove for the bastard's throat, slashing fast and holding nothing back. He did this to myDucky.

 **-Slit-**

For the second time in my half life I thought I saw a Valkyrie, and for a second time it turned out to only be Dune. I wasn't disappointed because if she was hovering over me and jabbering her coddling crap while every bit of me howled with agony, well, that just meant we were still alive.

I still had no idea what was going on or what happened. There was only confusion, my meat suit screaming at whatever abuse it had latest endured, and the scav carrying on. I hadn't even come back to myself enough to start testing limbs with minute movements to see what was totaled and what wasn't.

She was on her feet over me, a blade in her hand, and hissing like the feral she was. Was someone there? It started coming back to me. Chased away from the Crow Convoy, wrecked, Storm Chasers.Shit, but I felt weirdly peaceful about it, apart from it all, which could be something I'm told skull meat does to protect itself when everything is fucked.

I couldn't see, everything was just black silhouettes against a furious midday sky. Dune was roaring. Oh. I've only heard that sound come out of her twice, the time we tried to kill each other and when she told me of the last caravan she traveled with and their demise. That's when it sunk in, we were caught by the cannibals.

A man shouted, then laughed. I couldn't hear much but I could sense somehow that others were closing in. I rolled without bothering to find out how ruined I was first. The sand under my face was all wrong colors from having my eyes scorched by the light above. Some of the strange blots would certainly have been blood, as I'd later find out that my face had gotten even uglier.

"C'mon! That's the way she likes it!" Dune raved.

I rose on my elbows, reached back for the holster on my hip, but it was empty, gun having fallen out during the crash possibly. Clumsy fingers checked twice for it, because it should've been there. The spots in my vision wouldn't clear, all I could manage was to claw my way toward the sound of Dune's raging. What I saw when I strained to see through the glare, it was Dune hitting the sand face first, a cord tightened around her neck and a wrist thick poll jammed against the back of her neck to hold her down. A catch poll. My guts lurched up into my lungs as three sets of hands wrestled the knife from her grip and pulled her arms back to tie them. She threw her head and screamed, sand coating her face and fangs painted red. No, this can't be happening. I couldn't get up, could barely lift my head, I couldn't do anything to stop it!

"I'm gonna enjoy your flavor, Hoppy," I heard a voice whisper too close to my face, breath reeking and hot.

I looked up, saw a mouth full of rotting teeth all stained the color of shit surrounded by dirty blonde hair. His earlobe hung, sliced in half, and the flesh parted through his cheek all the way to his nostril. His foul blood pattered against my face in hot splashes.

We're good as dead.

 **-** **Ripzag** **-**

I couldn't smile praise to the electricentric Lord, couldn't do much expressing of any kind with the meat mechanics of my face hacked through on the left. I might grin crookedly for the rest of my spark blessed days once that healed up.

The culprit was tied down across the trunk of the pursuit car ahead of me, the doctor cuffed in the back seat of the same vehicle, and the biggest prize out on the bonnet for full display. Finally got that slippery morsel. Further ahead was the tow truck hauling a Chevrolet Impala in rough shape but loaded with goods and potential. At the front and escorted by our best spotters, the doctor's Volkswagen bus.

It isn't everyday you snag a legendary car, less often do you have a real craving for the chewy parts behind the steering wheel. Never thought I'd have a taste for the lumpy, an engine licker, a tailpipe violator, a War Boy, but this incomplete sub-human had damaged what was mine.

Too many times I had heard news of this car and its operator using our road to pass between the ravaged scavenger lands and the Dead Barrens. Two years ago the younglings had captured and then lost both a vehicle and the larder within it, that's the first time I ever heard of the one legged War Boy driving a Chevy. I had assumed we'd never hear of him again. The second sighting was only a few months back, speeding down our road into the Dunes and then back through into Scav Country during a single night. That's when I got curious, started keeping an eye out for that vehicle. I'd begun salivating at the very thought of snapping up a worthy bite like that. It had been a long time since I last tasted a true warrior. If he could escape the young'uns once and avoid them later, he showed promise. The leathery woman with him? A lovely side dish. The lady managed to slice 'n dice me like a prime cut from ear to nose.

Good thing we grabbed the ol' doc when we saw the opportunity. He'd already escaped us once and we weren't keen to lose that asset again. I had needed stitched up and I got those knotted threads whether the decrepit bone bag wanted to put them in or not. A little lead encouragement gets you what you need, he hardly needed the whacks he got with the barrel of a pistol. This pain was nothing.

The pain being endured at home in my bed? Now, that was something. Gunner, my bullet buddy, was shattered from the hips down when ugly ol' Hoppy flipped Lightning Rider, our rig. He was worthless now as a warrior, Gunner, but I couldn't bring myself to let the Shaman slaughter him for the good of all. Gunner had been with me too long. I liked him better than the breeding stock or the proper ladies. Even if he never walked again, I'd like him around. Thank Lord Crackle I had the power to make it so. My new rank could grant me the frivolous and sentimental things.

I could hardly wait to get out of the Caterpillar Dumpy. Hated driving this damn thing but when your previous work life gifts you a skill set, you use it. I could parallel park this stupid thing in the crack of a gnat's ass if I wanted to, scattering a convey to pluck out the targets I wanted was just play and at the time I really thought I might want to run over the fucking Impala and the scum inside it.

Gunner might be pleased that the man responsible for the ruination of his legs would be brought to a savory justice, or he might not. He was funny that way, being an anomaly from a far away place. I was still looking forward to the spit roast to come, I'd eat the War Boy's tongue, take in his prowess and make it my own. Maybe the tongue of the woman, a creature of lead herself, might renew Gunner's strength.

Longing for the day to be done, I wasn't happy with what slithered over the North horizon. Shit. I saw trucks with their caged over beds and the familiar flame thrower setup in the back of the one out in front of the pack. Scrud, an old friend and enemy. A frienemy?

He's the shit-shack who sold me to Bullet Farm twenty-two years ago, the man who re-sold me to my own people ten years later, the crawling infidel spawn with his clutching hands too deep in our pockets. Aw hell. We had to stop, for our alliance to his superiors there was no choice but to yield in his perceived territory.

He'd just have to be patient. The hulking Cat takes a cold minute to stop. The passenger at my side, the true driver of the borrowed rig, squirmed at the sight of the thrall rustlers who ruled here during the hours of daylight. His name was Switch.

"I knew I should've stayed in the barracks, knew today was gonna be rust-n-rot," he muttered, yellow ochre encrusted lips quivering around every word.

"Shut your dusty mouth, you're not gonna get traded off," I told him honestly.

By a great measure, our alliance with his people now held more importance than with Scrud's troop. Bullet Farm was safe under the gaze of Crackle, for now. Scrud was still a necessary annoyance, but hopefully not for much longer.

When the dumpy finally slowed to a coast by its own weight, I broke, brought it to a stop and parked. I let the people peddler wait again, looking over my shoulder at the Bullet Boy as I exited the cab.

"You're gonna wanna leave, double shipment of water at half-moon for the reinforcements. Tell the dig crew I said "hi."

Switch didn't hide his fear nor the disgust he had for me since the slave brand and yellow war paint had been scoured from my skin for good. He moved into the drivers seat as I left it, shoulders hunched and nose crinkled.

"Sure, sure. Good luck with your, uh, things..." He said, trailing off in an awkward mutter.

It somehow pleased me, the fear. He was yellow inside as he was outside at the mere sight of me now, didn't matter what chums we had been back in the mines.

The dumpy was so huge-mongus that you had to descend stairs, yes, a case of rusty old stairs to get off the thing. The moment I was off, Switch was leaning out of the open door and bellowing out orders to his brothers. Good of them to send the earth hauler and their speed junkies to help us catch the Impala and the doctor. For a third and final time, I made Scrud wait, taking my time to wave the Bullet Boys and their rigs over the horizon no matter what tension it bred between those still standing in the sand.

Scrud was still there when I turned, looking impatient as usual, but I no longer had to jump to jerk off his ego, did I? We were on more equal footing, but you shouldn't be careless with serpents just because you're bigger. He had an oily look about him, skin dark from far too much sun, he almost looked shriveled by the heat and over the last half a decade the grey in the black of his mohawk had multiplied enormously. He couldn't be fifty, but he looked like the greedy demon in him was leeching away what little youth any man has left after they come of age.

"You know how the Day Boss feels about poaching, and you know how I feel about it, Ripskag," He said.

No pleasantries, then? I tried to ignore the taunt of his pet name for me. I must have given away how it still bit down on my nerves to hear it with a twitch or an unconscious glare. He smiled, and no matter how much my mouth wet itself at the idea of gnawing his face clean from his skull raw, Lord Crackle would condemn eating anything so rotten.

"This is vengeance, not a hunting expedition," I assured, but I could tell by the twist of his lips that my words meant nothing to him.

"Personal matters are nothing against the tenets of the treaties, anything caught or found in the day belongs to the Day Boss."

"That thing on the bonnet destroyed my Gunner," I told him, directing his eyes with a pointed finger. "What use could YOU have for a one legged lump factory, an old man, and some angry bitch?"

He turned, hands on his hips and walking with a near strut as he made his way around the rig to observe our catch, and with any hope he'd acknowledge our right to it too.

The unconscious War Boy he spat on, probably for no other reason than to taint the coming feast in any way he could. The old doctor he peeked inside at with recognition and you could see that he had questions when he glanced back at me. Then he came around the back and stopped by the head of the woman. They looked at each other intensely. Without question a different kind of recognizing had taken place. From the look in the leather handed woman's eyes, she'd be screaming through her gag if she weren't apparently paralyzed by terror. And Scrud; his lips pulled back over his teeth and he growled through them, all the while scratching at the scar that wrapped around his scalp from temple to crown.

He no longer wanted to play our usual game of negotiations. Now delivering an ultimatum he said: "You know if it weren't for the mutual benefit of trade between us, your kind would have died out generations ago. Are you happy going home with news that the bi-monthly shipment won't be coming anymore and nothing to show for it but these cockstains?"

Scrud was nothing but a snake, but he'd never struck a blow so low or made a threat that implied that he'd cut off trade over anything that could and should be seen as trivial to his Day Boss. He'd have to lie, blow up any offense we'd made into a war crime to justify an end to the excess beans they shipped us from their own suppliers. I wouldn't put it past him to do just that, slither along home and cry foul to his boss just to get his way. The nasty woman must have meant something to him, and it couldn't have been good. Those half rotten and moldy beans were one of only a few dirt grown foods permitted by his Electric Majesty, for without it we would all die sick and toothless. The fair weather loving cuck had me cornered for the hundredth time. No choice but to comply.

 **-** **Dune-**

I couldn't see Slit. Couldn't hear him. Couldn't even kick him to check that he still had a pulse. He was on the other end of the damn ugly little rig we were bound to like matching hood and trunk ornamentation. He may as well have been a thousand miles away, no way for me to reach him. This was only one beastly worry gnashing its teeth in my sick skull. Another horror, we were going to be eaten, no if ands or buts about it. Oh my heart, my lungs, my mind! They burned white hot, running too hard and too fast. My thoughts could only summon to me images of chewing jaws and phantom molars gnawing open my very bones to suck the marrow. You could argue it was deserved, and if you do, rack off then. My own indulgence in the forbidden delicacies was a necessary evil. We were at the mercy of gluttonous animals who'd rather shun the less sinful tucker. When I wasn't terrorizing myself with the awful imagery of our ultimate fate, I worried Slit could already be dead, and sickeningly I almost hoped he was. Sounds crazy, I was just begging the Goddess to spare his soul an hour ago, now I- well, if he was already dead, then his last breaths wouldn't be spent in fear of the most absolute kind.

The worst was yet to come. If I were just a bit more out of sorts, I might have wished that we had indeed fed hungry storm worshippers.

The wheels quit their spinning under us. Everyone parked, engines were shut down even! Some of the rigs left, including the big dirt mover. Once that was gone and the roar of its engine faded, the sounds of heated argument hit my ears, but I caught not a word. I was busy turning my ears toward the front where Duck was, pulling against the rope chafing layers of skin off and chewing at the salty rag between my sharps as I tried to call to him in muffled bellows. I wanted, needed to hear a reply. I strained to hear through the clipped barking and snarling of angry people. I heard nothing from him. I couldn't decide what would horrify me more, Slit dead or still alive. For now, his silence drove my skull flesh berserk.

A shadow was cast over me, so I turned my eyes up to see who was there. That's when everything stopped. My brain, my breath, maybe even my heart. I knew this face, it had crept through my most awful dreams ever since a young and lovely child was made an ugly woman. This blight on the bountiful wastes who looked upon me, this was the man who stole that pretty girl's brothers away from her and Mumsy, who sowed seeds of rage in that same mother, and the man who laid the founding stone of sickness in my head. The slave maker: Scrud.

I felt that that things had become unreal, maybe a vivid nightmare, that I could wake at any time to my Ducky pulling me back under the covers and commanding the night terrors to cease with a growl that soothed. I was numb, somehow cold under the blistering wrath of the three-oh-clock sun. It seemed that I had lifted out of the ropes binding me, out of my body even, just floating in a wretched purgatory. It was as if this fragment of time wouldn't pass, it stretched on forever. Even the devil man's words pulled themselves long and thin, so slow and distorted in my ears that I couldn't understand them as he droned with his eyes still boring holes through me.

He banished himself from my view, moving on to shout and jaw on at someone else. Time snapped back into place then, my heart thundered wild and seemed to misfire. If my chunder button wasn't half broken, I'd have spewed around the gag in my face. It happened. It, the horrors that befell Mumsy, Russell, Flick and I had happened again and- what would come Slit and I now? I tried in this instant to understand what was being said around me. Hands groped a scav unkindly and she could do nothing about it. The gag was torn from my mouth. I could barely move in my fright and when the ropes were cut away I rolled off the trunk and hit the bumper on the way down like a limp bag of wet barley. My ribs ached at that, but I had no time to so much as voice pain. Sun heated iron encircled my wrists, I may have wailed at them. My anguish was answered with boot treads in the back. I tasted sand as they pawed all over to check for sharps. Wrenched up to unto my shaking legs, which tingled from the rope which cut off their blood only a minute ago, I was spun and shoved around. My wrists were fastened to a long chain with a pad lock... I couldn't tell where I was, in the past or present. It all felt the same. Just one continuous nightmare.

"Three hours till dusk. You camp with us or risk the fury of the Night Boss," one monster murmured to another.

 **-Slit-**

I knew I had been roped to the bonnet of a car, I'd been conscious for that and now felt the sting of heat blisters from the hot engine radiating under me for untold time.

Still, fear wouldn't quite register. I knew I should be afraid, my head pounded more ferociously than it ever had before and Dune, I could hear her near me through the ringing in my ears. She was sobbing and whimpering. First came clipped visions of her face, her fangs pinching her lower lip near to breaking the skin as she tried to stifle cries. I would be dumbly uncertain of why she was crying at all, then I'd remember and begin to panic. She'd cry harder, try to curl herself over me to stop me from struggling, I'd be comforted, then I'd seem to forget why she was crying again. It was a cycle.

This is what a head injury does to you, gums up the gears and cogs in your head till only the absolutely necessary bits are turning with a painstaking grind.

We were in the back of an uncovered pickup and it was moving, I knew that much because every bump and jostle rattled me rusty. There was what I then thought was a roll cage above. Wilson was there too, but his hands were in cuffs. The cuffs confused me more than anything, till I'd remember again and they'd both press in to keep me from moving too much. He was asking questions that my skull meat just couldn't comprehend. I kept slowly shaking my head against Dune's right thigh where my head was propped. Something kept dripping down on my face. Oh, right. She's crying. I was more worried about the why of that rather than Wilson's persistent questioning and chattering at me. I looked up at her, watched her lips twist back, cringing folds around her eyes and into her laugh lines while her throat tightened as if she were choking. I tried to lift my hands because that's what I should be doing, right? I should have been pulling her down here and doing something to get the cola-works to stop. If the bite of iron around my wrists and the throb of my busted arm hadn't stopped me, Wilson throwing his legs over me would have been enough too.

"Stay down, stay. Don't move, boy."

"Is his back snapped?"

"I can't tell, I don't think so. Legs seem to work, just don't want him sitting up and bouncing around against the bars. Don't wanna grind bones that might be broken..."

Every time I blinked against the dying light my eyes wanted to stay closed and someone would nudge me, then Wilson's voice would start up again in rough tones.

I s Dune okay? What' s happening? Where's Crank?

I wanted to ask him if the car was alright, too. Every time I slipped into darkness and was forced awake again, the daylight had faded more.

Someone should really start a fire soon, it's getting cold.

Someone must have shared my concern. The next time I had the strength to crack open my good eye, the glow and warmth of flames greeted me. I was near a fire pit and propped up between two people. It took me a moment to figure out who, but with time I could decode the hushed voices behind and in front of me. I was leaning like a limp corpse into Wilson's back and Dune, she was behind me. I recognized her right leg sans boot pressed outside my own. My eye fixated on the scarring which crept up around her ankle in tight wrinkles as awareness began to thin the fog in my head. Her left arm was wrapped around my ribs, shine hand cradling my busted arm for me. My gauntlet was gone, I felt her thumb worrying around my wrist in nervous circles.

Wilson was talking about something entirely random and softly, describing flavors of something called a Bee-El-Tee to the woman, whose voice was hoarse as she asked clipped questions back. He was distracting her, and enough of the meat machinery in my head was working that I understood why without immediately forgetting again. We were linked together in chains, stripped of any sharps, munitions, or metals, even my leg was gone. Free men were positioned around the fire, the end of our chain led to a big masked brute's belt. This was what you do with captives. There were at least three pairs of watchful eyes on us at all times as I lifted my head, finding it difficult and excruciating, to look around.

Dune's arms coiled around me as I moved. It hurt my ribs. "Ducky," she breathed against the holy brand on my back. I wasn't sure how she had her arms around me till I figured that she must have looped her chained arms over my head and shoulders at some point while I was out.

It was a knee-jerk reaction when I replied: "M'fine, Nutter."

One soft sob escaped her and her face pressed itself into the back of my neck, which also ached. Nothing didn't twinge. I guessed that was just life from now on and there probably wasn't much life left to be had. I struggled to repress a pitiful groan at the realization of both the agony and our surely impending doom.

Someone came around with a dented plastic jug of cola to wet our mouths, but only enough to keep us alive. I knew the drill, I'd rationed cola to captives back when I wore a coat of white war paint. Wilson got four solid gulps because he was old and valuable. My turn, but I new damn well I'd only get a second or two on that grimy spout, I was one legged and wrecked. Worthless. It was disgusting, caked in the gunk of countless other mouths touching it before mine, but I bit down on the threads for the screw-on cap and chugged for the full five seconds the bastard couldn't pry it from my clenched teeth. Punishment was coming, but I already had that cola down the gullet, so my mission was accomplished. What could the thrall minder do? Nothing but inflict pain, and I was already in pain so it hardly mattered. I was cursed at, slapped with a hand thrust into the sand first to make it sting, and that was all. I'd have dealt a worse blow for less offense. Dune made a fuss, growled and hissed profanities, but took her sips of aqua-cola. When I turned my good eye back to look, though, I saw that glitter of hatred in her eyes. She held the mouthful until the man was distracted in front of her, trying to fit the cap back to the spout deformed by clenching teeth. She spat her cola back at him in a thick squirt. I couldn't hold back the bark of laughter that exploded out of me when I saw that she'd done an excellent job of soaking the crotch of his trousers. He looked like he'd pissed himself.

Dune's punishment came swift and nasty for the embarrassment she caused. She was kicked hard in the meat of her thigh, with enough force to rattle me too. My retaliation came so quick that Dune's pained yowl and the shit's shouting sounded together after I'd kicked at his ankle with everything I had left. The effort sent stars shooting through my vision and doubled the pounding in my head, but watching the gutless slave feeder fall on his ass and clutch his foot was satisfying.

He was soon rolling forward onto his knees to take a swing at us, Dune was trying to shuffle herself in the way to shield me and I was trying to shove her to my back again. Wilson was bellowing too, holding up cuffed hands and trying to stop the fists sure to come flying at us at any moment.

"ENOUGH!" Thundered a command from somewhere around the fire. "Sit your stupid ass down... Can't do your damn job. Least you could do is be quiet before the damn Buzzards hear that racket."

Dune was hissing and spitting behind me, like a snake, as those around us settled and my gaze zeroed in on who was clearly in charge. You can always tell by what everyone was sitting on and what condition their boots were in. This asshole was seated on this cushy ring of foam upholstered in fine blue leather, just the right size for his skinny ass, and his boots were well conditioned leather, toes protected from scuffing by shaped steel or more likely aluminum. He even had real boot laces, not braided cords woven out of human hair.

If by some miracle I got out of these cuffs and came into possession of a gun, I knew who I was aiming for. I couldn't hold my head up too much longer. Felt awkward as hell but letting my skull drop to the back of Wilson's wrinkly neck was the only option I had. The world was spinning and tilting and the fire light was horrid.

"You alright, son?" I heard him say. Felt weird to be called that on top of being huddled against him.

"Chrome," I plainly lied.

All Wilson did was grunt back. Dune burrowed her face into my shoulder. I couldn't tell if she was shaking from fear or cold or anger, maybe all three. The chattering voices around the fire, and my own anxiety, kept me from slipping back into darkness.

"Gotta say, that's one messed up looking chick,"

"...regrettably, my mistake. Didn't do that freaky deal on top of her head, though," said the leader, and I heard him shifting about on that ass donut thing.

What he said was confusing, did he know Dune? Didn't do her lightning scar, but what did he do? The burns?... I thought I heard Dune's teeth grinding, evidently from the ache of my broken teeth they were my own gnashing fangs as I put together the pieces. This could be the cunt who lit Dune on fire over a decade ago. Filth. The scar on her head, the sandstorm, that was why we were here. If none of that had ever happened, she never would have gone temporally mute, never would have begun sleep walking, never would have gone so much battier that we had to go to the bog to patch up her head, never would have gotten sucked into Crank's plot to return to the Citadel, and we never would have been caught like this.

Damn lightning, I thought, but heard the word echoed in the boom of that storm weirdo's voice. I must have thought it out loud.

"LIGHTNING?! She's lightning struck?" he squawked, clumping over and starting up Dune's growling and teeth snapping again.

That got my eyes wide open and the bloodpump squeezing the blood through me at furious speed. I lifted my head, tried to turn myself away from Wilson and look.

"Hands off the goods!" the leader snarled.

"Six, I'll swap you SIX good breeders for this prophet of Crackle,"

Dune's hands curled to fists around my shirt. The consequences of what I'd said hit with total force then, the storm freak wanted to buy Dune. Of course he would, now that he knew she'd taken the wrath of a sandstorm straight to the skull and lived. He reached around me to touch her head, the scar. Some kind of alarm siren rang in my head, the kind that usually meant 'time to do something, or else die probably' but maybe the fact that I was chained and that the threat was coming for the woman instead of myself made me twist around in her grip, get tangled in the chain and my own shirt, and throw myself on her. All I could do after that was lift my leg to put an obstacle between the freak and us. Dune just rattled under me and heaved ragged breaths as a great commotion began. Everyone around the fire rose. Two different men claimed right to Dune, the Storm Chaser and the leader of the Thrall Rustlers. We got knocked around in the struggle. Wilson howled more furious than I'd ever heard him before. Someone grabbed at Dune's arm and got bit, not be her, by me. A gun went off, and the scrabbling hands that had closed in around us and yanked in all directions vanished. Four more shots sounded... Then as Dune's wails and screams quieted to sobs muffled in my shirts, the echoes of fading engines found my ears.

The Storm Riders had been chased off.

 **-Phil-**

We'd made it to the badlands, there had been no more attacks on the convoy, but my rage had not cooled. Barks was fortunate that there had been men to stop the blood shed, to physically prevent me from finishing him. He'd wear the scars and be gumming down his grub for the rest of his life. I had no regret. I could have saved my boy and Dune. I could have and I refused to believe otherwise, how hardly mattered at this stage.

On the dawn of that day, I rode Featherknife's motorcycle toward the high rising towers of the place I knew and feared, not knowing much about what I'd find there. I was alone, but risked one quick stop once I was out of Buzzard territory. One small mint tin of white powder was all I had to make myself recognizable. It was old, moldy, and I was never sure what compelled me to keep it until now. A thick drop of spittle was enough to wet the foul stuff enough to spread on my face. Crushed charcoal from our cooking fires of past days would have to stand in for the grease and fine black soot traditionally used to darken our eye sockets. I hardly knew the face I inspected in the side mirror anymore. Crank was just a ghost, but one the Citadel would know.

My bloodpump ached. My war pups are dead, my first sons. Gone. My wife is in mourning. My husbands are wounded. A sweet lady to whom I owed more than she could imagine was gone too. I never got around to thanking Dune for all she'd done.

I put it away, the hurt, and pressed on, letting my heart be drowned out by the scream of the engine under me.

A shanty town built of scrap had risen from the sand around my old home. Everything looked different. A great pool of water contained by stone and mortar had been built where there had once been only thirsty bodies waiting under the great pipes for Immortan Joe to grant them an extension on their miserable lives. This was a fever dream. No one paid me much mind as I rolled to a stop where the lift platform sat, lowered, with no one guarding it and dozens standing upon it yawning and blinking away their sleep.

"Who's guarding this?" I called, realizing I must sound somehow stupid as a minute slip of a woman turned her head and scowled at me all the while adjusting the wrap holding back her cascade of strangely clean black hair.

"We're Goin' t'work. The hell are you doin' down here dressed like that, war fodder?" she grumbled.

I couldn't believe my ears, no wretch has ever spoken to me like that, so little fear. I wasn't offended, just taken for a hell of a loop. She rolled her eyes and pushed at the man and woman next to her.

"Looks like another straggler..." someone said, they shuffled, made room for me and the bike.

I walked into the place they'd freed up for me. I didn't have the wits about me to ask how long the apparent wait would be, I just opened the valve on the oxygen tank and let the life saving gas flow through into my mask as I replaced it over my mouth. Other people were filling pails from the cola pool. I watched one woman water three short rows of green collards next to her canvas tent which only took up half as much space as her garden... Great V8, GREEN on the ground below the Citadel. I couldn't believe it. It was sobering. I thought this surely was a dream until the lift trembled ferociously and began to rise.

The bike almost tipped and I had to drop my mask to catch it. The wretched woman was hollering up toward the men standing at the entry platform. Ah, there were the guards. I guessed that they sorted everyone once they were at the top now. The tiny woman kept calling out that word, straggler, toward them as we rose.

Another man approached the edge and peered down as we neared the top. He was painted white, a brother whose brows and lips were cut through in a tally of scars to count every comrade witnessed. Notch.

He saw me and I saw him. We both looked as if we had just seen apparitions in the heat waves rising from hot sand. His face hardened, and I wove my fingers together, head bowed, on my knees to salute him. I needed his pity, my pride is nothing against the welfare of my family. I could only pray that Notch's capacity for compassion hadn't died with Tank.


	9. The Devil's Big Plans

**-Slit-**

By morning I had not slept but I had a better idea of what was going on. The Thrall Rustlers had intercepted the lightning worshipping pricks sometime during that several hours-long period I can't remember. Apparently, they had some kind of treaty and we belonged to the slavers based on where we were caught. There was talk of a day boss and night boss. I had to guess at what that meant and given that I knew this as Buzzard territory, the Night Boss was probably the ruler of the Buzzard underworld further north. The Day Boss was probably whoever this jackass, Scrud, answered to.

We were stuffed into the caged-over bed of a pickup after the Storm Chasers were run off, I had to be pulled up to my foot by the old man and bodily thrown by the huge asshole whose belt we were chained to. Wilson and I were then ordered to "shut the wench up".

Dune was in the same type of state that she'd been in when we were nearly murdered by Scrotus boys only two weeks or so ago. If she wasn't staring wide-eyed into the abyss, she was shaking and babbling at the noise in her head.

My brain was still in backward, light burned the interior of my skull and I had to swallow back bile at least a dozen times, so I couldn't do much for her. The best I could do was lean on Dune while Wilson came in on the other side to keep her in the middle and somewhat muffled against my neck. Old meat mechanic began chattering quietly again to get her out of her head, talking about old world crap, the same as the night before. Somehow it even settled my belly full of sloshing gut acid. He talked about how he learned his trade, talked 'classes' and 'dormitories' and the people he knew, the things they did, about cramming so much knowhow into their heads that he suspected all the reading was what made him nearsighted.

Dune fell into an exhausted but shallow slumber, twitching and writhing between us at every noise or bounce of the truck as it began to move. I was fairly certain we were headed south along the mountains. We passed camp after camp, all former Scrotus installations, all derelict.

Have you ever known you were so monumentally screwed that you slide out of panic and into this- it's hard to describe, a not-quite-aliveness. My bloodpump was still bludgeoning itself against my ribs and every voice made my gut clench but my head was quiet inside. I just didn't have much going on upstairs and I couldn't be sure if that was the busted head or what.

The big fuck we were tethered to had a tamed bird pacing across his shoulders. I watched it sometimes as its master sat in the back with us. Beady eyes and black feathers, a death omen, but a slave too. The line of trucks stopped, Big-Fuck was told by the man in charge to send off the feathered rat with a painted bottle cap tied to its leg. A convenient hole in the wire cage was what he used to push the animal out into the world. They were waiting for something.

Dune jerked and huddled closer as if something had just bitten her, when I looked about, I found that filth Scrud with his fingers curled against the wire, casually leaning in with a smile that just doesn't fit on his weather eroded face. Something malicious permeated the space around him in a great radius. His own men avoided the aura, Big-Fuck leaned away against the wire at his broad back and avoided eye contact.

"Amazing, you're not easy to kill, are you?" He said as if speaking to an old mate.

I had to swallow back the vomit rising up my gullet when I figured he was speaking to the Nutter, who wouldn't look at him. Scrud probed me with his eyes instead.

"Ya know, I DO regret what happened to you. Probably could've sold you to Lord Scrotus even with the teeth. Did you know he'd gotten his teeth filed too? I didn't know that until I met the man in person." His lips slid back in a scowl at his own words. "I use to corner the market on all the pretty meat you could get outta Scavenger Country... Scrotus used to have varied tastes, would send word out that he was searching around for a specific thing. He'd take old magazine clippings and glue together pretty faces, send the order down to his white crusted devotees. He was nuttier than squirrel turds but, hey, you could fetch a good pay-day if you found whatever thing he wanted...

"He wanted young, exotic, green eyes. I got my hands on just what he wanted. Sent the message out. He even paid me an advance to get you all the way to Gas Town, safe and sound. Then your mommy had to go ahead and ruin you."

Dune, I think she was trying to climb inside me while I clutched at the collar of her shirt on reflex. It felt like at any moment he might flow through the woven wire like a demonic entity. We weren't going to be sold. I knew that much, and the unknown of it was like staring down into an endless chasm in the earth, waiting to be swallowed by it.

"Do you have ANY idea AT ALL of what Scabrous Scrotus did to men who broke their promises to him? ANY concept of how he could RUIN a man?" He screamed, shrieking at us.

Wilson was scooting back and spreading his arms behind him and around us but didn't dare speak. No one could cough up a single sound.

Scrud spat into the truck bed as he scratched at the scar on his head. Maybe that's what Scrotus did to him, among other things.

"...I'm not gonna kill you. You're gonna live. I know just what to do with the lot of you. We're headed to my favorite place in the world. We're going to Shatterbone, they pay top aqua for doctors. You though, sweetypie, I'm callin' in a favor. HAH! I'm gonna PAY to have you carted off to good ol' Bullet Farm! You're gonna be surrounded by lead and ammo, but the most you'll ever touch before the rock-lung kills you is raw ore! It's almost poetic."

He began to turn away, and the second his eyes were pulled off me, my voice and the comforting familiarity of hate returned.

"V8 will smite you, coward," I spat. Maybe it was a foolish move.

He paused, laced his fingers together behind his head and chuckled. "You're shit to me, missing a leg an' all. Seems you're worth a lot more to that mistake in your lap. I've got big plans for you too, lover boy. Big plans."

We were left there like that after he sauntered off to torment someone else with his presence. Big-Fuck stole a glance at us from between the rag tied around his head and the dust mask he wore around his mouth. I bared my teeth. Head injury or not, anyone fucking touches me or the Scav, I'd make it an unpleasant experience. His bulging eyes fell on the woman. He shuddered before he wrapped the chain around a strut of the framework on the cage and clicked shut a padlock to secure it. He left, locked up the door too, and tossed a tarp up over the wire on one side to block out the morning sun. That told me we'd probably be here a while if there was any need to shade us like penned up livestock. Something about their boldness to park out in the open for hours truly rubbed me wrong, but that didn't matter much, the nutter was having a fit, rocking away and back into me while jibbering at her mother's ghost.

Wilson seemed to have run dry of before times stories to keep us from imploding on ourselves. He was absorbed in watching the men around us from where he sat by the gate of the truck bed.

I don't know what was going on up in Dune's head, I could wager a guess but I don't want to imagine it. If she'd sunken into her head deep enough and started making too much noise they would likely have done something rust about, so I had to do something about it before it came to that. What the fuck do I do? I was sweating like a wretch in a heatwave, felt like I could probably drop dead of a ruptured bloodpump hose any minute if that bit of meat machinery didn't quiet down soon, and the nausea wouldn't let up. I was scared shitless, and that's no easy thing to admit, but watching Dune flip her lid like that was somehow worse. Fuck it, I was born to die. Whatever that skid mark had in store for me couldn't be worse than everything else I survived up until this point. I just had to get her head back on right so we could figure a way out of this mess.

First I had to sort out what was going on with the chains and cuffs. All of that was twisted together and pinching fingers while we sat like this. Next, I had to turn her around, pull her in, and fold her arms against her chest the same as I did whenever she was trying to sleepwalk. Like she'd done for me hours ago, I looped my cuffed arms over her head and down her shoulders. That hurt the busted arm to do. I just had to be sure I could lean away far enough not to hork up gut acid into her hair if the pounding in my skull took me to that point.

I couldn't talk about the cavern, not the Citadel either. That'd be like baiting roaches with a shadow to hide in only to stomp them dead. I had one thing I could jaw about that she always pried for. She was still practically vibrating in my lap and muttering nonsense between her chattering teeth, but she stilled a little when I asked: "You wanna hear what my idiot driver did once to out-do me? Oh, he regretted it big-time when it was done and starting to heal up."

She nodded, the move shaky and punctuated with a hitched breath. Fuck me, I hated it when she got like this. Used to make me want to get away from her, now I just wanted the chance to shred everyone here, one at a time.

I told her about how I got the decal on my left shoulder, a nice piece done by a pro in the Bloodshed. Nux, being who he was, decided he wanted one too, but that he could get something so chrome that I'd never be able to compete. We were always doing that, pushing each other till Notch got pissy and put an end to the fun. Told her about him too, how his favorite words to spit at us were 'This is asinine'.

Nux had scratched out what looked like an engine diagram, caught him once scrawling on ten shit tickets glued together. I should have known better when he rushed to hide those charcoal drawn drafts from me. Not one month later some pup trots up while I'm busy braiding cords and leather scraps over sticks for my stock of thunder, he told me I better come to the bloodshed and see Nux...

"Well, I thought the bastard went and got himself wrecked rusty somehow, I'm following this pup through the whole damn War Tower, Boys howling at me about dragging live thunder around 'cause I forgot to drop it off before I left the armory..." I had to stop. Nausea hit me, hard.

The sun was shifting higher and slipping past the tarp into my eyes. Made my skull feel like it was spinning on top of my shoulders. Had to swallow that back after a gag or two. Skin burned even though the air was cold around us.

Dune unfurled her arms to grasp at my hands with a rattle of the chains. "Slit?"

"M'fine... Just fine," I lied, hiding from the light in her hair for a bit. I had to keep going, or else now she'd start panicking and fussing over me. Didn't need that noise either.

"...anyway, I get there and there he is, a whole pack of Boys standing around watching the retired, ancient fuckin' organic burning a whole damn engine into him with a soldering iron. Whole damn block, everything."

"Sounds like an overachiever," she said, snorting back her snot and gripping at my hands tighter.

"Yep," I replied. He was.

"H- how'd he regret it. You said..." her voice fell too low for my good ear to pick up, but I know what she said.

"Nipples," I muttered.

That got me half a laugh from her as she huffed out a one-word inquiry to confirm what I'd said: "what?"

"Design wrapped so fangin' tight around his nipples, he had those headlights on for an easy month and a half. Never stopped whining about the itching and burning. Got infected for a bit too. The dumbass."

I managed another short story or two about the mutual idiocy Nux and I enjoyed when we were young and thought ourselves invincible, destined for greatness, delusional and indoctrinated as I'd begun to realize as I spoke of it though I didn't then know the terms to describe such a state. She calmed, somewhat, but still shuddered if anything or anyone around the cage moved. Wilson hardly said a word.

Nothing happened for hours and only once the sun began to fall did we see more vehicles appear on the horizon. No one got excited about it, so it wasn't Buzzards or Lightning Lovers.

A trailer of naked steel, broken up by wide patches of rust, flickered against the setting sun. It was for livestock of the old world. That's what we were forcibly stuffed into once the two convoys met. There was a lot of noise about it, both the three of us cursing and spitting at every face we didn't know, and the mass of filthy things resembling humans chained in that trailer. They squawked and yipped for wet stuff. When the back gate was closed the crusty bodies we were piled in with quieted, purely because they all knew no rations or cola was coming. Scrud came back around to peek in through thin slats at us, I heard his nasal kind of laughing before I saw his shadow silhouette the light outside.

"I don't usually oversee this route, selling off unskilled labor, but I deserve to treat myself, see it through to the end... You're gonna lose everything, Green Eyes, just like me."

Again, Dune hid her face in my neck. I wanted that man to die just as much as I'd wanted to turn the feral who stole my driver into nothing but a red splatter, but I wanted to kill Scrud with my hands in a crushing, twisting manner. The hateful fantasy was so vivid and visceral that I swore I felt my hands crushing human flesh... Actually-

"Duck, that hurts!"

Oh, I'd been bruising the mound of her shoulder in my right hand as I held her. Oops.

Most vehicles left, headed north again. Through the slats I watched my car towed away, I couldn't even mourn the loss, not now. I'd feel it later if we ever got out of this. The three of us were pressed to the back left corner of the trailer by the gate. The only positive in this was that we wouldn't have to lean on anyone's filthy body to rest. You could argue that it didn't matter much. Everything smelled like human shit and the floor was slick with piss anywhere more than a foot from the drainage holes. Our corner wasn't much cleaner than any other spot.

The sun fell as the slave caravan moved, but no one in the trailer slept. I overheard others talking, that they'd sat in holding camps too long without buyers. Apparently, slavers could sell off captives by the dozen for labor or combat at Shatterbone as a last effort to break even on bodies that cost grit and cola to have kept alive. They were all doomed to death or more squalor, the three of us were just along for the ride.

Dune was curled between the wall and me, I'm sure it felt falsely secure to be held like that and I endured a few pangs of envy over it, too, even if I was too proud to have let the roles reverse if that option had been offered. I just sat there, thinking while the nutter used every limb to cling. That's the thing that always kept me from sleep, thinking.

I used to think about Nux dying, slowly, right next to me. That night I imagined what was going to happen next, let morbid guesses play out in my skull meat about what "big plans" that fuck had for me, about where that would leave Dune, alone at The Bullet Farm. I don't think she knows how much I listen to the things she says and how much I watch what she does. Many nights I'd listened to her murmurs as she slept, too. I knew there was someone else before me, I know his name and I know he was lost somehow. I've heard half a dozen names and had to fit together pieces and say nothing, and I know all or most of those names belong to corpses from the first caravan looking for some new green place to settle. I wondered if my name would rank among them in the months to come. I was beginning to accept the fact that we weren't escaping. After examining myself I realized that while I was unconscious the day before, someone had torn out every last staple from my skin. I had nothing to pick the cuffs with. I didn't think I'd see Shatterbone. The way that demon spoke, I was pretty sure I wouldn't live to see anywhere else either.

When the sun rose, I saw salt passing us by outside. Blinding white that glittered the moment the sun peered over the barren earth to look upon everything it had cooked to death. Maybe because of both the exhaustion and the head injury, or maybe instead because any minute could be my last chance to look at her, Dune had never been so chrome. Dried blood, entrusted in thick cakes of dust stuck to sweat, streaks under baggy eyes, none of that could detract. Green really is a fine color. I finally had a reason to like it as much as she did. The harsh morning light reaching in to touch her face only made her eyes more intense.

This was short-lived whimsy, as everything in my world had been. The back gate opened. First Wilson was restrained easily by one man. He bellowed and fought with the energy of a man half his age. Next, they came for the Scavenger and me.

The sounds of that struggle are scorched so deep into my brain that they might be featured in my nightmares for the rest of my half-life. Their hands gripped everywhere, around her neck, around her legs. My shackles were undone, but I wouldn't be removed from the trailer easily. They beat at me with whatever they could find without killing me. They didn't want me dead, they wanted me suffering because it meant she would suffer too. How'd I known that? Because that devil said so himself as he tried to put Dune in a chokehold and got himself bit.

I tried to hold on, around her shoulders, then the collar of her vest. Her nails left deep sctatches in my left arm. No. We both cried out that word, roared it, screamed it. Her eyes were full of cola and she looked pale where her skin wasn't flushed in bright red from the strain. Even the whites of her eyes were red. They struck my hands, my arms, by back, anything to get me apart from her. My fingers tangled into her vest for grip, the tug-o-war pulled it right over her shoulders, head, down her arms till it caught on the shackles and tore. Her squeals were inhuman, she wailed like she'd been shot in the gut.

The sudden separation sent me and everyone trying to rip me from Dune flying out the back gate, and I was tossed over and the air kicked out of me for good measure as the men around me gathered themselves.

Her shrill voice sounding off in terror willed me to roll over, ball my fists and find someone to pummel about it, but boot treads in an already sore spine put a stop to that and stole the wind out of me a second time. That piece of shit had her face in his curled arm, stuffing his thickly gloved fist into her mouth to quiet her as she struggled against the restraints. With one arm around her head the other was free to do as it wished. He pulled her left eyelid up with his thumb, commanding her to look, watch as they left me to die. Another pawn worked to secure her wrist cuffs to a chain looped around her waist with a padlock.

"Now you know what it's like to lose it all. Say bye-bye to lover boy."

The last thing I heard her say were my names, Slit, Ducky, but howling that she was sorry. For what? She didn't do this. She looked so small in his grip, like a pup. The way he jerked her around by the skull, It made me sick. She couldn't fight him, not with her hands shackled and pinned down around her middle by the chain. I could tell by her sounds that's he was hurting her, and I couldn't do anything about it.

She was shoved back into Wilson with all the care you'd spare a bag of rotten potatoes and the gates clanged shut between us a moment later. the last I saw of her was her fingers pressed through the slats and her eyes peering out at me as I lay on the ground with Big-Fuck's boot heel grinding into my temple. Everything I heard was muffled untle the pressure of his boot came off my head, my good ear pulsed and rang in nauseating whirrs. My metal leg was tossed to the salty dirt before me, useless to them now I guessed. It was just garbage to be chucked out with the rest. Scrud was unscrewing a canteen and passing it aside to someone else, who sprinkled something inside from a jar in his pocket.

"We're on the reef. It's a maze. I'd wish you good luck but my happiness lynchpins on you dying and the wench knowing it so, go fuck yourself."

The canteen was simply dropped to the salt, Dune's choked sobs was all that had my attention, though. This was going to bethe last time I saw her, I was sure, so I didn't give a shit about cola.

I was left on the salt to die, only a few months short of three years after Dune shoveled my charred carcass out of a flaming wreck for no particular reason outside the fact that she was kind of lonely and too out of her mind to know better. Her howls faded quickly as they left with her, I was... numb. Just my meat was out here, the rest of me was still in the trailer, reeling from what had just happened. I wasn't sure if it the two halves could snap back into place and if they did it'd probably put me back on the ground trying to claw my brains out of my skull with my bare hands.

A single caged pickup didn't leave, not right away anyway. It was Big-Fuck leaning out, huffing and muttering under his breath as he pulled down his dust mask. He had a badly malformed upper lip. He tossed something out. It was dark and leathery and parts of it glittered like steel. My gauntet.

"Don't want this. Don't wanna be reminded of this bullshit. Slice down your wrist. It's quicker." He told me, then pulled away to catch up with the rest.

...and I was alone.


	10. Engine

**-Dune-**

I understand what Slit meant when he once told me there are things from his history that he just can't remember.

I remember Wilson, how he told me 'stay alive, I'm going to come find you. Just stay alive' but I think he was just trying to convince himself of this, next came his raging roars, his shouting and cursing when they split us up, then nothing.

Months later my senses would remind me of the things I'd seen. A familiar smell, and the memory of bodies shuffling along on the chain gang across a platform and the sound of men making bids would appear and fade. This is off point, getting ahead of myself about a footnote from another far-off time when my fate would be uncertain again. This was the day I met a woman named Demon, and a demon named Madame.

I met Madame first, sort of. Her face was a persisting presence ever since I was pulled apart from Wilson. I don't remember arriving at or leaving from Shatterbone, only that the malicious aura around me had doubled with this woman and Scrud together, talking in the seats ahead of me while I sat cuffed, tied and chained to a car door.

I met Demon next. Her hair was the same color as a copper jacket. Bizarrely pretty, clean, skin that looked so flawless that it seemed fragile and thin like the grey silks she wore. I recognized the stuff, perfectly uniform woven thread and crafty use of hems wrinkled with the pull of elastic. Someone had made her fine clothes from a pristine bed sheet set. I haven't seen bed sheets since Mum and Pa had their own mattress.

If it weren't for the fact that the Madame woman kept scorning every sigh or groan the girl uttered and calling her by that name, Demon, I'd have called her Sheets.

She ignored me, did not speak, and only leveled glares that bit like ice crystals. Apparently she was in a world of trouble for some reason, hair all badly cut as if somebody had gone at it with a dull knife. The older woman in the seat ahead of me was all red in the face and kept reminding the young woman how hideous her head looked.

She'd say: Ugly as my arse now, or I'd be lucky to sell you off lookin so trashed up, and much more telling of the circumstances: Couldn't even shoot out an heir before your man carked it. What am I gonna do with a girl whose baby makin' guts gon sour? It was an awful, awful thing and the Lady of Seeds was surely pissed about this, but it wasn't my drama. I tried to tune it out.

Beyond looking at one another once or twice to see what we were each seated next to, we ignored one another. Memory blurs out again like tracks in the sand swept up by wind. All I could think about was Slit in between horrid moments of complete emptiness in my head. My thoughts were liquid, they'd slip away and I'd be unable to grasp them. It was like fog in my skull and being startled every time my brain decided to remind me where Slit was. I can remember thinking so intensely that it was midday, he'd be turning red all over by then. More head fog rolled in.

When I returned to myself it was because the car had stopped and I was being dragged out of the car by the rope coiled around my ankles. It hurt, everything outside the womb hurts. I didn't fight Scrud, I had no bite left in me to do anything but let myself be dragged. I hardly cared, why care about anything? He won, he'd done what he set out to do. What would more fighting do? Nothing.

I looked around a little while I was hauled along. Metal, metal, metal everywhere, and not a bit of it left untouched by rust. There was a kind of short tunnel, a tube chewed through in rust circled holes by salt and wind. After that I watched tires, studded hubcaps, and both bare and booted feet pass me on by. Rather, I passed them on by.

After all the dragging and getting scuffed up on the floors, he dropped my feet and pad locked my chain to a group of the poor and desperate all huddled together in the open courtyard of- oh, this is a camp. Everything was boxed in by rust rotten shipping containers and... I'm not sure what the other old-word structures were. Tubular like the entrance but with rows of Windows on the sides? One such big tube thing halved the courtyard in two. Everything else was framed in high rising rock. What a camp.

I could hear squeals, growls, and Madame's horrid cursing. I sat up to watch her yanking on Demon's hair to lead her deeper into the compound. Guess you can't house a girl dressed so prettily with us filthy beasts.

No one among the other captives paid me any mind, which was just fine. They lay about conserving energy and hiding as much as they could from the harsh sun under a curving dome of rusty rotten wreckage from yet another tubey thing. That was the only shelter provided and only the roughest of the bunch enjoyed its shade and a moldy couple mattresses nestled in the shadow it cast. Others had little choice but to coat themselves in the dust and hope it protected their exposed skin enough.

The mass of unwashed I was seated with weren't the only captives here. I saw true slaves through an open doorway to the other half of the yard and the bodies attached to the feet I had seen.

At first I merely watched the movement of men at work for a long while without actually absorbing any information. I wasn't really in my head. I was elsewhere, senses not telling me anything useful at that time. I was like a pupating grub, closed up in a shell, can't really see, hear, or feel much and only generally aware that something was going on outside its protective casing.

It was late in the afternoon before I really began paying attention to what was going on in that other half of the yard. There was a distinct difference in the two men who wore boots and the dozen others who walked on their bare soles. The booted men were dressed in protective leathers and carried old sports crap. One carried a bat with holes drilled in it, the other a lacrosse stick.

The others, they were barely wearing anything. Practically disintegrating pants or shorts with all of the pockets cut out or torn off, most shirtless, but a few had small burlap ponchos or squares of ratty cloth to tie around their heads. It was hardly enough to protect their naked skin, though it might not matter. They were completely coated in dust and presumably their own filth. Anywhere they sweat created steaks and any drop that fell was muddy brown with dirt.

Each of these men were chained to a crumpled wreck of a car and between each two vehicular cadavers was a box of shared tools. They were dismantling the wrecks, desperately picking them apart looking for anything useful. I spied a fenced off and locked storage area, through the chainlink I saw bins overflowing with hardware and parts I could not possibly identify. That must be Madame's business, selling parts and people.

One car looked fit enough to repair, I watched the men up to that, leaning under the hood and tinkering. It was somewhat comforting to watch them busy with something Slit would so often do under dearly departed Shirley's hood. For a moment I thought I was beginning to see things, or that my sick brain was trying to morph the homely and horridly unkept men into Slit. They had scars of you cared to look past the wildly over grown hair all over their heads and faces. Pretty little doodles of mechanical things across chests or down skinny arms and calves. When one was ruffling up his hair and scratching at his peeling sunburns about the back of his neck and shoulders, I saw Joe's logo. These were War Boy slaves, and the booted men pacing about the crowded and cluttered half yard? Supervisors. Twice I witnessed what the bat and lacrosse stick were for.

That baseball bat had the curiously big holes drilled through it so that it hurts more and whips through the air faster when its owner catches the slave mechanics slacking off. What was considered slacking was simply preposterous. They were tiredbecause they were emaciated.

As the sun set, the ratty and rail thin boys were freed from their projects but thoroughly searched for contraband pilfered from cars. Next they were mustered together by the awful booted men tapping at their knobbly knees and elbows with their beatin' sticks to move them into line for their shackles. The sight turned my stomach.

They shuffled along in a neat line on a long chain to a space across from us non-culters. Some rolled up cot mattresses were tossed into the cluster of men, all too young to be so broken. A few were knocked down pitifully by the scant bedding chucked at them. I wanted to retch. They all moaned and whimpered with sore and visibly hungry bodies.

How could anyone be so terrible to do this? Vampires! Sucking the life from already sick men because it was easy! What evil. I didn't care what these War Boys may have done in their lives as Joe's soldiers, no one deserves this. Any judgment which awaited them should be dealt in the afterlife, not here in the plain of mortal suffering.

The horrible Madame came with a great steel basin of grey gruel and table scraps. Each boy got a pat on the head from her as they weakly held up their little dishes to be filled. These tin bowls which always hung from their belt loops were probably the only personal belongings they were permitted to have. Some whimpered softly, others looked outright afraid of her. It all read nasty to my eyes, something insidious and wrong.

The other new slaves and I were then fed similarly, but everyone around me simply held up their cupped hands to clamor for it. No pats for us though, thankfully we're just chattel. I refused the food, got snapped at by the man behind me to 'put em up! I'll take yers if ya wanna be starvin'!" I piled the mess into his greedy hands and wiped my fingers on my pants. Couldn't stomach tucker although I knew I'd regret this refusal later. I watched the devastated former soldiers instead.

One man, who'd been beaten nasty that day, was too weak to feed himself. A mate of his fed him with clumps of food on his finger tips. A great sorrow swept over me. I could remember feeding Slit like that when he was weak and busted up. Everything reminded me of him.

After every morsel of food was gone, the War Boys seemed to snuggle together in a sad pile by the wall they were chained to. It was gut wrenching to look at them and know how easily this could have happened to Slit if he hadn't crashed. It made me wonder if they'd been thrown from the Citadel and if Phil and Ard could have a shred of hope for their clan there, then all that thinking circled right back to my poor Slit yet again.

I couldn't sleep, would refuse sleep just the same as the gruel if I were capable of getting any winks. As night closed in and blanketed the world in her black cloak, I was unable to think of anything but Slit cold, alone, dying out on the salt. I could so clearly see him in my mind, curled up and shivering, fighting to stay warm enough to survive the night.

I began to weep miserably, shackles rattling with every sob as I clutched at my face in anger. I was bereft, they took him and ended him in the cruelest way for no reason at all.

"Aw, please don't cry," I heard a voice say to me.

Strange, so soft and so sweet that the genuine nature of it sounds out of place in the voice of a grown man. Sweetness like that is only found in the youngest of children in this age.

When I wiped the drops from my eyes to look at where the voice came from, I found one of the scrawny men from the War Boy chain gang, sitting up only a few feet from me and trembling from cold without the shared body heat of the pile. He was so thin, so sickly. A pitiful ol' thing with a face which looked so much older in the harsh glitter of moonlight than his voice sounded. Sunken and sallowed cheeks make you look old or ready to become a corpse. His wasting body was filthy, black from grease from fingertips to arm pits, the rest of him stained a shit brown from the dust and dirt, only his sides where the old sack he wore was cut and tied off revealed him. The sweating and the rubbing of his bony elbows had scrubbed the filth from his true skin. He was pale as a toddlers milk teeth, the whitest thing you will ever see.

He continued: "Madame will get real upset if you wake her up. Likes her sleep, she does. Gets mean if she doesn't get it."

Moonlight is faint even when the celestial face is full, so I couldn't really make out his eyes, but his terribly scarred lips quirked toward the weakest smile I had ever seen. It was as if this mere facial gesture was exhausting to feign. There could be no happiness within this man. He was in hell. We were all in hell. No need to make it worse by waking that witch of a woman, she'd probably take it out on that poor copper haired girl first.

So, I choked back my cries, bit my knuckle just short of opening up my skin and spilling red with the great effort. Now it just hurt deep in my chest with every hitched breath and sniffle. I couldn't stop picturing it, my Ducky freezing out there.

"There, that's better. Things ain't so bad. You headed to gas town to work? I heard they feed ya good." he said after a moment and an attempt to pat my shoulder, he was swatted away. I'd had enough of stranger's unwelcome hands already.

I shook my head, knowing my fate well since the cunt bastard palling about with the sadistic bitch wouldn't stop reminding me.

"Bullet farm." I replied.

"O- oh. I'm sorry. Well, still better than here, probably." the bony boy said, very nearly in a whimper.

Didn't make sense, his voice. I had to snort back the snot building in my face before pointing that out. "You ain't no War Boy. Too sweet, sound like a sprout when ya talk."

He laughed feebly, either trying to keep quiet or too tired to give it any true amusement.

"Whadda you know about War Boys? Ain't likely to meet one out here, 'cept us." he asserted.

"Lived in Scav Country. Best mate was a War Boy. Mean fucker, my Ducky. Found 'im half dead a couple years back. He's probably fully dead soon. Slaver fucks left him on the salt." I told him.

"Rust suckers," he spat in a whisper.

"What's your name?" I tried, somehow I didn't want to leave here without it. I wanted to remember his kindness.

"It's Nux," he breathed, and my lungs refused to let their air go.

I must have sat there looking confused long enough for him to notice. The scarred lips, a soft soft disposition, and eyes that glittered pale and blue when he tilted his head at me and waved a hand before my eyes to break my stare. You'll have to excuse the phrase, I might as well have been shitting a solid gold brick. This man, though thin and terribly ragged, was just as Slit described. Once able to pick up my brains off the ground, I assembled my question. I had to be sure I hadn't misheard him.

"What did you just say? Say it again, please."

"My name? Nux?" he replied, sounding a bit worried now.

"L- lift your shirt." I said, realizing too late that it came off as a demand.

He recoiled, justifiably, at such a request. "Why? I don't even know your name yet!" he hissed with every effort to keep quiet. A stern shushing from one of the guards sounded from nearby.

"Yeah yeah, whatever, name's Dune. Come closer, can't tell if my head's full of sillies or not." I tried whispering lower, but I couldn't suppress the startled quivering in my voice.

"What does that have to do wi- Head sillies? You a psychotic?" Now he exclaimed, maybe a bit too loud.

"Do you have an engine on your chest?"

He jerked slightly, then froze. Stunned at my guess I suppose. Now I knew it was him. I needed no more confirmation than the way he looked at me.

"...How did you know that?" he questioned softly.

I strained against the taut chains to reach out and touch his hairy face, shoulder, whatever I could reach. This was the cursed and mourned brother, a man I felt I knew through stories and the look in Slit's eyes when he'd told them.

"My sweet green lady, you're his Nux."

And how in the world had he gotten here?


	11. The Salt

**-Slit** **-**

The first thing I did was put my leg back on. They took my belt and boot when they searched and removed everything useful from us, presumably days ago when I was unconscious. I couldn't secure the metal leg very well without the belt, so all I could do was tighten the laces up the side so it wouldn't fall off. It was just more pain. On a good day it would be excruciating, today it was just another grain of sand in the desert to have the leather girdle choking off blood flow and then standing on the tingling stump.

I had to follow the tire tracks. There was no other option. I would simply follow the tracks and eventually catch up on foot. Sounds like a moronic idea because it is, I was thinking on the fantastical plain, Dune or my dead driver's level of dumb optimism, because the other option was just what that big bastard had suggested. Slice open a bleeder and become crow food. No fucking way.

Next my gauntlet and blade were put back in place even if it was worthless as a weapon with a wrecked elbow. It was mine and I wasn't leaving it.

The canteen though? I was definitely leaving that. I saw one of that cunt's men dosing it with something from his pockets. I'm not drinking poisoned piss-water and taking it would only tempt me later once desperation set in. I didn't even want to look at it. Even laying eyes on it now was a temptation. Fuck that, I steeled myself against my already growing thirst so that I wouldn't discover what they sprinkled in that token cola for a dead man.

Dune's vest, left shredded at the shoulders in the dirt, she'd want that back, ruined or not. I'd fix it first. I'd fix all of this if I got half the chance. I stuffed it into an oversized cargo pocket.

Now I had to move.

The tracks weren't hard to follow, for about an hour I still occasionally heard the truck hauling the trailer every time it broke far ahead, the deep growl echoing over the empty land. I only stopped hearing it when I arrived at what Scrud must have meant when he said this hell-hole was a maze. Mounts of dead sea stuff, all with their jagged and zigzagging limbs reaching even in death toward the sun. Notch once showed me and a bunch of other pups in my generation a chunk of this stuff. I could practically hear his voice in my head when I stopped momentarily to figure how I was to keep tracking the slavers through this shit.

"It's bone but not. More like a rock, but still not that either. Part of some animal thing in the ocean that died when all the salty cola pulled back. It'll shred your tires down in the Great White if you're not careful."

From the looks of it, it would shred me too if I tried climbing over it all.

The ground had become hard and irregular here, not as great for holding a trail. It shouldn't matter, someone had to have blazed a trail through this at some point if Scrud was getting through it on the regular to some supposed settlement out in the Big Nothing.

What could you use to clear this shit for a road? A plow maybe? Nah, bulldozer and an excavator first to break it all up then a plow. I figured there'd probably be a wide swath of devastation somewhere for me to pass it. So, I started walking along the mess of tangled deadness all grown one atop another looking for that opening.

The mid-morning sun had climbed a hands width before I found the trail again. The sun pounded down on my naked scalp while cool wind chewed at my face and hands. I still had my jacket, well, actually, that was Dune's too. Or her dead father's? I had to wrap it around my head before I burned and pull my hands into the sleeves of my shirt before they turned blue.

I had to keep going. Had to move no matter how the leg raged at me to stop or how my guts grinding dryly inside me urged me to just lay down. I had to get there and do something to stop it all from happening.

Too late, I considered that it might have made more sense to go back, find water back in what was once Scrotus territory, then try to find a car to boost and just head them off for Bullet Farm. That's all easier said than done, a stupidly long shot that might get me killed trying to steal a car or even a bike, but the chances of getting the job done that way might still have been better than traversing the reef. On foot. Without supplies. Alone.

I could blame my idiocy on the still roaring head injury, but in hindsight I might have made the same mistake even if I was in top shape.

Noon hit, that cold breeze became hot gusts and the light scorched every grain of salt it touched. My naked right foot- I was afraid to check it. It gave the pain inflicted by the metal leg a run for its scrap and I was certain it would all be one giant busted blister very soon.

The winter temperature extremes weren't the only problem. I found the trail, a part in the not-quite-bones of the sea bed. It made my guts clench. Something about this road, piles of old death lining it like rubble from old-world buildings, each two men high and as far as I could see, it was somehow worse than tripping over a sun bloated corpse. These sea things weren't even human, but the sheer magnitude of the death here...This place was death, my dried out skull flesh decided, or it was hell.

Every blast of wind against cooling sweat reminded me that I was drying up. I could barely stand anymore as it was. The only thing keeping me upright was the fresh memory of Dune shrieking my names.

I tried to keep moving, I really tried, but my meat and bone decided to shit out on me with zero warning. I think I had sweat my last couple drops. The salt chewed deep into my palms as I crumbled to hands and knees, and what little wetness I had left in this meat vessel spewed out in trickles of hot bile and gut acid.

I then regretted leaving behind that canteen, even if it was poisoned with V8 knows what. Thirst makes you crazy, I started crawling back over my own tracks, little by little, taking ages to cover the ground I'd traversed in only a few hours in a mad state. Felt like my insides were boiling and lungs turning to ash. I found the canteen. Drank every last drop, then lay there as dusk turned the sky to the colors of fire to match my burnt out body.

I lost Dune. First I lost Nux, then I lost Dune. Mediocre worthless shit-shack Scrawn. My cruel brain shrilled the worst it could do at me, always was my own worst critic. I wanted to burrow into the ground and die there of whatever toxin I just guzzled down like the failure I was. A sob crawled out of my pathetic face, just one. Maybe two. After a while, I felt the wet stuff do its work, perk me up like a wilted plant after a cool sprinkling. Maybe it wasn't poisoned I thought.

Okay, get up. You're not dead, so get up. I remember thinking those words, really they were a remembered quote from Nux, coaxing me out of the Bloodshed any one of the dozen or more times I had royally miscalculated my prowess and got wrecked. He was right, even his fucking ghost haunting my skull meat was always fucking right. If I could still stand up, then I was going to do war today.

When the car is running the driver is technically the boss no matter your respective ranks. My engine might be throwing steam plumes and obviously I was losing coolant but if the driver wants guzz, better give 'im guzz, so, I got up. It took more effort and will than I'd like. Foot screamed, leg roared, arm yowled, head moaned, and I whimpered, but I was up.

I was back at the reef in no time with a little renewed combustion in my engine, foot was definitely raw meat and I felt every V8 damned step on the salty dirt like it was hot embers, but I was fucking on my way, moving at a reasonable clip, and pushed past pissed off into a realm far beyond murderous.

I thought that the surging black pool of hate boiling over inside me was why things looked so... Off. I felt strange, not starving and dying of thirst with a concussion strange, this was a strangestrange that I'd never felt before. The dead sea junk seemed to pulse, breathe, and it pretended to be different colors that you can't see when you look directly at any one place.

The fuck?

The ground warped under me as I walked. I looked down at it. I saw my bleeding foot, and around it was a carpet of maggots.

I've trusted my eyes my whole career as a lancer, and I always knew exactly what I was looking at. It was instinct, to drop to the dirt and stuff a handful of squirmy fuel into my cola hole. All I got was dirt and salt, retched on it, would've chundered up what I drank if it wasn't already well on its way through my tubes. It was the most supremely foul thing that had ever been in my mouth. My eyes screwed closed and I gagged till my throat burned. There were no maggots there when I reganed the strength to look, but I knowwhat I saw.

That would be the first of loads of unexplainable shit I saw. Hours later I was seeing figures and shadows of men, silhouettes of War Boys with shaven heads and trousers heavy with tools and gear. I only just had enough grip on myself to figure the cola had been drugged. I didn't know where I was, all the shit looked the same and I wasn't on that path through the reef anymore. I didn't see any tire tracks either. I'd gotten turned around, and I kept seeing Nux with his back turned to me as he dashed out of sight again and again, as if tempting me to follow him. I probably wandered in circles half the night, at least until I felt so frozen that I couldn't focus on anything but how my limbs from elbows and knees down we're so cold they felt like they were going to fall the fuck off.

I was sure I was being watched, stalked by something, I could hear it come near, snuffling and growling, only to skitter away every time I turned. There were things in the reef hunting me. It was an absolute truth to me, things molded out of the black sludge in my soul come to life to chew me up. So, I hid, crawling under an wide umbrella of reef bones still intact somehow, curled in on myself, and jammed my frozen fingers into my armpits to ward off frost bite. Felt like my bloodpump might bust itself while I watched out by the moonlight for stealthy would-be attackers. I saw the long back and protruding spine of something galloping on all fours past my hiding spot, then a peircing, definitely not human wail in the darkness.

"Wild dog I think, Dingo maybe. Haven't seen one of those since I was a pup."

The voice didn't come from inside me, I wasn't alone. It rattled me so bad that I fell back on my ass and scrambled about till I found rock to cling to. The man in here with me laughed, it was an almost malicious chuckle, like he thought It was funny to watch a broken bastard like me squirm.

"I'm not gonna kill ya... What're you doing out here dying like some moron?"

I didn't believe him when he claimed that he'd do no harm, but perhaps I was too delirious to understand that it wasn't his fuckin' business what I was doing.

"Going to Shatterbone, gotta go get her back."

"Wife in whites?"

"No,"

"Ooh. Special girl then. I had one of those once, not that I deserved one..."

I tried to see him, I was still spooked and frozen in place. I could only make out his outline by how the moon rays teased shapes. He was reclined back, head resting on the rock, legs stretched out as if he weren't cold, and arms probably folded over his grotesquely thin chest. He hardly moved. I couldn't even detect his ribs rising and falling as he kept on speaking about some broad I didn't know or care about.

"...Shine, shine girl. Big crazy smile. V8 built her body outta star dust, upholstered her interior with woven sunshine, cassette player even worked, hah! She was full of songs..."

I didn't say anything for a minute, his voice sounded familiar and honestly so did that girl of his he kept beating his teeth about.

"Sounds like Dune," I muttered.

"How bad did you lose her?"

My chest ached, but I told him the truth anyway. "Bad, real bad. She was- she's Dune, she's not supposed scared of anything! But she's scared now. Fucker who burned her up has her. Mother Fucker who burned her has her!"

"Shit, sounds like your biggest cock-up yet."

"Shouldn'tve gone. Should've stayed in Scav country. She'd still be safe."

"Lost mine like that too, and my best mate. Should've made him stay home, couldn't say no to his dumb kamicrazy face. I caved. Now he's dead too... I'm gonna die without 'em. Even if I get outta here I'm gonna die on my own."

"Yeah, yeah. Me too."

He quit talking for a bit after that. I felt like sinking into the salt and dying all over again.

"Hey, you got a favorite song, mate?"

"Dunno what it's called," I told him.

"Remember any parts?" he pressed. Ugh fuck off, why do you care?

I thought about it anyway. I don't know that I had a favorite at the time, but I kept picturing Dune, pacing all over in her cavern home doing this and that and singing along by herself the whole time. She sang all kinds of things, my spent skull flesh picked a tune at random. At first I just said the first few words I could remember, 'wheel in the sky keeps on turnin''. After some time it started to sound like I was trying to sing along with the memory while I watched my breaths leave me in misty puffs. I sang myself into a very cold sleep that night and dreamed that everything was reversed, that I was singing to Dune and everything was alright.

I didn't want to wake up, but it's a damn good thing I did. If I hadn't been torn out of the dream by teeth around my ankle I'd have probably frozen to death.

It was the dog thing the stranger had spoken of. I pulled back on reflex, which isn't really all that smart when you're dealing with teeth, and managed a solid kick at the mongrel's head. Probably hurt myself as much as I hurt it. The thing and I both yipped and it ran off.

Dawn had come. The world glowed faintly. I looked around for the stranger. I found a body, he was dead, but not frozen in the night. This bastard had been dead for weeks, maybe months. I was so blasted out of my head that I'd imagined the corpse talking to me. I'd just been talking to myself. Jesus Chrysler, this must be how the nutter felt every damn day. I'd lost my mind that night, for sure, and now I had no guzz left... I was done.

I flipped open my wrist blade and truly considered it's sharp edge and the words of advice Big-Fuck had offered, but I was a coward. Spent moments, then hours, then a day bringing the blade to my skin and then away. I was just playing chicken with my own sanity although I was dead either way.

Another night passed, I fought sleep again and lost, yet somehow had managed not to die, but by then I was also not quite alive anymore. I faded in and out on my third day lost on the reef. I dreamed of home, and sometimes I even thought I heard an engine growing closer, then closer still. Ridiculous, what a mediocre death. It was so mediocre, in fact, that I swore I heard a Nux calling my name. Must be on my way into the grave then, so I laughed angrily, then miserably, then feebly...

Finally swinging back around to pick me up, huh Nux? Better late than never I guess.


	12. Bitter

**-Nux-**

"Whose?" I asked too loudly.

She answered at the same volume in a sob: "Slit's!"

"Quiet down or I'll come down there and crack skulls!" That was one of the night guards.

What the fuck?!

Slit, my lancer, was dead. He's supposed to be anyway. The woman had to be telling lies, but who would even know that name among the endless dead? Or be able to pick me out of a crowd looking like this?

All of us at that camp were just stragglers unlucky enough to survive the canyon. Not one of us spoke of dead brothers, or home, or Valhalla. No one even spoke of Immortan Joe. We heard a little of this and a bit of that about everywhere from the live cargo constantly passing in and out of the gates, but we rarely discussed any of it. Didn't matter to us because we didn't think we'd ever be leaving that place. War Boys dead or left behind are just casualties of something historic and we all knew it. Our names would die with us un-legendary ones because that's how it's always been. What was Slit's name doing in a stranger's mouth?

I heard Slit declare it, Valhalla. I'm certain I heard his final scream for glory right before the War Rig crushed something, then kaboom. Out I came from patching up the engine, and there was no more Slit in pursuit. I never asked anyone what happened. I didn't need to. Slit was Slit, so he probably wrecked the Razor Cola in one of his temper tantrums like the moody jackass he was- or still is?

Alright, she must have been crazy and making things up, but how crazy do you have to be to cook up a coincidence like this in your head?

I didn't get much sleep that night. I had a thousand and one questions but the guards were already annoyed and I was freezing my ball-bearings off, so I had to go back to the pack for shared body heat. I still watched her as long as my eyes would stay open. She stayed sitting up and watching me too, which was spooky but I think we were both kind of shocked with each other. She shivered too and had to be cold, but she was in better shape than I was, could probably tough out the night in the camp where wind couldn't bite.

Slit survived? It took a while to let that fact to settle in my brains. I thought if I could stay awake I might have just a little time before work to ask how it was possible, but I couldn't keep my eyes open. Like always, I was even too tired to dream.

Morning had come so fast that it felt like I'd had a long blink and the night had scattered away. It was a usual morning for everyone but me. We stood in line for a splatter of never enough sludge in our bowls and most eyes were on the guard serving it. I was busy watching the strange woman.

She was still sitting up, but may have been asleep with her head rested on her kneecaps. She was smeared in dried blood, probably her own, but I wondered if it was Slit's. She said they left him on the salt, didn't she? I remember that part of the conversation happening before she asked who I was. So, Slit survived the war, but had or would soon die on the salt. The realization of that came just as the crap they fed us was plopped down into my bowl. My empty guts revved up at the sight of it even though my brain knew I should probably have lost my spirits and appetite at the thought of my former lancer becoming dried up man jerky out there. Always being on the edge of burning out from empty tubes does funny things to you. Very little could turn me off food of any kind and if I happened to cry like a pup into it? That just added a little needed salt for flavor.

Sweet merciful V8. The truth was I had been trying not to think about Slit for the last several hundred days, instead focusing on being happy that Capable and her sisters made it back. I had heard whispers about the Citadel, rumored to be ruled by women of generosity. If I had helped them make it back, then that was enough. I was okay with dying here, like this, if it meant they got to go home and make things better, bring their hope with them.

Slit. I burned the hell out of that bridge when I helped them, but let's face it, long before Furiosawent rogue the bridge was already soaked in guzz while Slit and I fought over the match.

At the end of every day since the road war I have had to accept that the only closure I would ever get with my lancer was none at all and that no closure was somehow less painful for the both of us. I always thought he was raging on in Valhalla, then I'm told by a complete stranger that he was not only still alive, but had been running around being best mates with her?

My gut clenched and my blood pump pounded with false fear when I looked at Dune again and saw her awake. We made eye contact. I was jealous but felt sorry for her. I hoped what he had done to me, he didn't do to her. He drained me mentally and emotionally every damn day. I care about my litter mate and lancer, and I knew he was the way he was because of what Spanner and Shaft did to the both of us, but that gives no one any right to treat other people like ego stroking wind-up machines. Still, it burned me up to see just how easily I could be replaced.

I stubbornly considered that he might not cark it on the salt either because he was too tough for his own good, apparently. By now he'd be more scars than War Boy. He's probably just fine, I thought bitterly. He was always getting lucky and pulling through whatever beating the world hurled at him. The salt is deadly, though, it's where you put people to forget about them.

I was relieved that he survived the crash and what had sounded like an explosion, of course I was, but things were still... Really, really bad where we left off. I couldn't decide what I felt or what I wanted. Afraid or glad? Did I want to ask that Dune to tell me everything, or be selfish and beg her to say exactly nothing about him?

By the time we were herded to our stations to work I was giving myself a headache trying to picture Slit being a "best mate" to anyone outside me, and he only tolerated the existence of a handful of others. Anyone with a little age and rank above us he respected out of fear and I know it. Again, Spanner's doing mostly. Slit sucks at- hmm. People. He sucks at people. So how then was he this woman's so-called best mate?

That day I only half-ass worked and caught a number of warning swipes from the supervising guards. I was too busy thinking to make much headway with that engine we were working on. Even the brother at my side was snapping at me get my head under the hood. His name is Fuel, one of my old crew mates before Slit and I split off and started doing our own thing wherever anybody needed the back-up. He slapped my shoulder and the back of my head every time I tried to lean away and see what that Dune girl was doing. Every time I looked, I saw that she was watching me too. I also saw that her right hand was gristled and malformed. Looked like scarring. Caught her baring her teeth like a feral at the man behind her trying to wrestle her breakfast out of her hands when it was served to them. He backed right off because those fangs. Past that, her huffing and low rumble as she puffed up and bluffed was a very Slit thing to do. Gave me chills. Yeah, she must know him then.

Fuel clapped the back of my nugget again and back to work I went.

I thought about it while we re-assembled the block. I decided that I had to talk to her again. I was desperately curious of what Slit had been up to, of what he'd become all cut off from home for so long. Maybe he went feral. Maybe he was hardly human anymore. I couldn't know till I asked.

Work was work, same shit on a different day, but it seemed sped up. I had no idea what to ask Dune when I had the chance, I never wished I had more time to work there in that rust dump until that day. Before I could figure out what I was supposed to say to her or remember any of the endless questions I had the night before, we were being corralled and chained for dinner and bed. I wasn't sure if I could chance talking to her before nightfall, guards might think we were conspiring. They were really touchy about us Worker Boys talking to the captives.

I ate. I waited. I tried not to look at her even though I could practically feel her eyeballs boring holes in me.

Night crept in and darkness crawled across the sky slowly enough that I had time to narrow what I'd ask down to a few things. First, I needed to confirm we were talking about the same Slit. Much as he'd argue the facts, Slit hadn't chosen a very original name. Second thing, I needed to know if he hurt her. Slit is Slit, whether I wanted to accept it or not, and he could be a right cunt. Maybe I shouldn't ask it that way, or at all. wouldn't necessarily want my rotten cargo dredged up. Alright, maybe I only had one question in the tank for her. Maybe I should ask how they met? Yeah, that was probably my best bet.

The woman was balled up, head on her knees and arms curled to hide her face as I prepared myself. My head hurt and my guts felt like they were grinding, but I took in a breath, looked at her, and willed myself to speak. All that came out of me was a feeble Hello.

She lifted her head to look at me with wet eyes, probably red too but it was already too dark to see colors. We just stared at each other for a long time, saying nothing. I felt ugly, like I should be shaved and painted proper to meet this person.

"He would..." she paused, covering her mouth for a moment to stuff down the sob cracking her voice, "He'd shout your name like a curse whenever she changed his bandages. Then cry for you in his sleep."

I had to look away, into the pit my crossed legs made before I'd start up with the crying too. I was always bad at shoving back the rust crap in my head before my eyes got wet. Had to bite my lip to stop it from quivering and grind my hands into my eyes to stop the tears.

"Things weren't so good. Last I saw him, I mean," I told her. I didn't expect talking to her to start like that.

Dune nodded slowly with a shiver in her shoulders, "She always thought so."

Talks in third. Huh, "how did- how'd you find him?"

"In a wreck, burned up bad. Left leg gone above the knee."

My stomach lurched around the meager meal I'd had. Imagining that was painful. "He survived that?"

Dune merely nodded and hugged herself tightly for a little bit before finding more to say.

"...he talks like you're dead. Now anyway, when he talks about you. Was grieving too hard before I think to talk."

I had spent so many nights before tonight fighting off my anger for Slit but also wondering if I was the monster who wrecked us up myself. I loved Slit but hated him so much at times. On days when I didn't feel much, I knew that we were both pretty monstrous. Devils in human skin who don't know how to love proper so we just destroyed each other again and again, each in his own way.

"Can't say I thought he might still be tear-assing around somewhere," I admitted.

A part of me had been miserable to believe that he was dead but also kind of relived that I'd never have to justify what side I chose or tell him how impossible he could be to live with. Days I missed him and days I cursed him were sometimes the same damn days. I got the feeling that whatever he told this woman wasn't the manipulative bullshit I'd normally expect of my lancer, who used to twist shit around to make himself look both chrome and somehow pure. If she were fed that kind of lying crap then she'd hate my guts. Surely the Slit I knew would paint me as a traitor, which was somewhat true, but also stupid, greedy, untalented, anything you could say to drag a man's name. But he grieved?

Whatever the hell she found, he didn't sound like my Slit. I wasn't sure if I wanted to stomp on whatever version of him she knew by telling her how wrong she sounded. Slit grief stricken was something I couldn't picture. It would sound like a lie if I hadn't heard this woman tell it with the certainty of having watched someone suffer like that. I could make her hate Slit, I thought coldly. I could tell her what a nasty, vindictive beast he could be, but Slit could make someone hate me too. Slit would only need ten minutes with Capable to make her repulsed that she'd ever been kind to me. It wouldn't be fair to Cape to make her regret being kind and good, wouldn't be fair to do that to Dune either.

My face was getting soggy, so I wiped the collar of my shirt over my eyes and nose to sop up the mediocrity leaking out of me.

"He told her how hard it was, when you 'an him were just sprouts. How you were Dyin'. He said lumps but..."

I sucked in a breath and she quit talking. Yeah, Larry and Barry and a whole host of their mates were killing me slow and rust, till I landed here. Madame had all our 'shelf lives' extended. The thought made every scar from that torture burn and had me wanting to vomit. I heard chains rattle behind me. Fuel was awake and listening, probably remembering having his own 'shelf life' extended.

"Madame had her madman doctor cut the rotten bits outta us. Some of us went and carked it on the butcher block. Some dropped dead later of infection. Rest of us are stuck owing her for an extension on our half-lives." I spat as quietly as I could manage.

I heard Fuel shudder and felt him curl closer around my back. He was definitely awake. When I looked behind me I saw the shine of other eyes open and watching, behind Dune yet more watchers.

Ugh, guess this misery is the best entertainment anyone's had in some time.

No such thing as privacy here, it couldn't be helped, so I pulled my length of chain taut to get closer and speak softer, she followed my lead, and we had a chat.

Last time I spoke to a lady I was laying on my side, holding Cape's hand, telling her how everything was wrong and confusing. I only told Cape a little about Slit, mostly how much we were fighting at the time and how he would outright ignore me sometimes to make sure I knew how horribly I had failed to be an effective War Boy. That had been just two or three days with an angel saint of a woman who was desperate herself.

This time, I was hunched, holding myself tightly with my arms tucked into my shirt and wishing I didn't have to sit with my right leg stretched out to give myself enough slack on my chain to sit close. I was freezing, my foot was numb, and I listened to a woman fighting off tears to tell me strange things in hushed but rapid mutters. Sometimes she was hard to follow, it was like she was trying to say as much as she could before we ran out of time.

I learned that Slit spent years with this woman, who put up with him and his crap, and for a while as she spoke it was hard to picture these things she said. It took time to recognize Slit through her experiences with him. He was still moody, jealous, and stubborn, but being away from the Citadel had changed things. Having all hopes and pride stripped from him had destroyed him. And she blamed herself for where he now was. She missed him and how safe he made her feel? She was mourning a true blue human.

Slit had died during the road war after all. The person she was describing was concerned with the welfare of his companion, was plagued by guilt and self loathing, had spoken about the things that made him feel that way, had told her about things that I'd needed an explanation about for so long but could never coax out of him, had accepted comfort and reassurance from her then gave it back. This was not my lancer anymore. I was nearly convinced Dune was some kind of desert witch who could pull the evil out of people. I almost wanted to throw water on her to see if she could purify it. That was silly thinking, a ridiculous magical excuse to justify how she could do all these things but I never could. Now this new Slit was going to die, or already had died on the salt.

For no reason at all, I felt guilty, and all the wet stuff of my face spewed out my eyes with nothing to hold them back. I barely kept it quiet enough not to get attention from the guards. I'd made a talent out of weeping quietly long before I wound up here. All War Boys had.

I had begun to choke on my sobs about it, all my failure, but much like Capable she'd had the words to ease the pain and help things make sense. Dune's words weren't shiny elegant things in your ears like Cape's. They were raw, kind of bumpity like a lump of mashed potato, but comforting. She told me it was okay that I didn't know what to do. She said sometimes, you just don't know because you're too close to a boulder to see the boulder.

I hadn't told her anything of the nasty shit Slit used to do, but what she said at the end made me wonder if Slit had told her himself, or if she could read minds. "...You didn't deserve any of it, mate. You didn't deserve to get all roughed up inside like that."

She may have meant that as an apology for dumping everything in her head on me at once, but at the time I thought she meant everything else in my history. She patted my hands as they shielded my face from her, and nothing else was said for a while.

"Something is itching on her," she growled.

When I uncovered my eyes I could see her shape twisting and turning against her chain. She was cuffed at her wrists and unable to reach around her back.

"Just scrub it on the dirt," I instructed, but she shook her head.

"Nah, somethin's on her," she reiterated.

"Turn, lemme see,"

She growled, but scooted around. "No funny business,"

"I'm just gonna look before you yanking that chain wakes somebody up!" I asserted, getting anxious the more she wiggled around.

Yeah, it was weird reaching up the back of a strange girl's shirt. It was real weird when what I felt did not feel like skin. At all.

"Oi! You got buzzard rashes!" I hissed, a bit panicked, and trying to scrub my hand off on my pant leg. I didn't need a rash, I was already practically falling apart.

"They're scars you twat nugget, got toasted to a crisp by these assholes when she was a sprout," she scolded me and I felt the burn of my mistake in my face.

"Sorry, sorry,"

I looked again. Found something with sharp little bits tangled up in the loosened threads of her shirt. It had a leather cord on it too. It couldn't come untangled, I had to grasp it in my fingers and the shirt in my other hand and tear it out.

I tried looking at it in the moonlight. Just looked like a twisted up little lump of metal with some shirt stuck in it. Dune turned to see, pulling it from my fingers and looking at it as it sat in her palm.

"It's his staple. They must've dropped it while we got searched." she mumbled.

Now I saw it. It was bent like a bead around a thin cord. Why was it not in his face? Was he wearing this like a necklace charm? Did it fall out? Why not put it back in? Or why not throw it away and replace it?

I tried to take it and look at it again, but she pulled it closer to herself with her jaw clenched. I backed off, didn't wanna upset her.

"Hey, is that Slit's face glitter?" Fuel whispered behind me. "Lemme see it."

"No," was all Dune hissed at him.

"Wait, if we can bend it straight and-" he kept pressing.

"Knock it off," I told him, reaching back to shove away his hand as he tried to reach around me. If she didn't want to hand it away then nobody was going to force her to.

"Can you pick these locks?" She piped up at Fuel. He just shrugged.

The man behind Dune, the one who had tried to pester her out of her food earlier had something to say, leaning in around her.

"I can," the ragged wretched looking man insisted with confidence. "Fast as water runs out."

"You can't pick everybody before we get caught and beat!" one of us Worker Boys warned.

"Don't have to," the biggest of the captives behind Dune rumbled like an idling engine, he was the one who was double chained and muzzled. Nasty looking bloke with something ugly in his eyes about the way he looked at people. "You spring me loose, I take the guard nice and quiet, toss down the keys. If you noisy cunts haven't gotten his attention yet, he must be snoring on the job up there at his post. Just spring me."

My bloodpump was up in my throat as Dune passed the staple to Fuel. None of us had pur tools with us in our sleep spot, but we had hard hands from harder work. It was passed around the gang to all of us boys at least once each as we worked it bare handed to straighten out the steel sliver. Fingers were pricked and rubbed raw on the sharp edges, when it hurt too bad to keep worrying at it, you passed it along.

It became deathly quiet for several long minutes. Everyone was awake now, watching us work that tiny scrap of steel hope with heavy breaths. It came back around to Dune as an irregular but one and a half inch long splinter of metal. She turned to pass it to the raggedy wretched behind her.

"I get this back, or else," Dune said before letting go of it.

"Sure," was all she got back in response as the whole group shifted about to get him within reach to pick Double Cuffs out of his bonds.

Dune turned back to me now, reaching out with both hands to grasp at my shirt, then my face. "Promise Dune, promise her we go to the salt. She can't drive stick. She knows he's not dead. Knowsit."

I think she meant to steal a car. Any car. Great V8, this was happening. We were escaping. I was terrified, but nodded anyway.

"And if one of us doesn't make it out, the other goes. If Dune gets caught, you keep running, got that?"

I understood. I hated it but I understood not looking back for the ones who fall behind. I was raised this way. I nodded again, even if I couldn't stand the idea of leaving anyone behind anymore.

Before I knew it, my chains were gone, and nothing about this escape was quiet from that moment forward. There were screams. Someone set the warehouse on fire. Us boys liberated any road worthy vehicle and everyone piled onto them. A guard was gutted in the middle of the courtyard. I lost track of Dune. The moment she got the staple back and her chains off, she'd bolted the wrong way, deeper into the compound.

Madame's men had woken from their sleep to their barracks lit ablaze. They were shooting into the scattering bodies veiled in thick, choking smoke. I broke my promise, I was looking for Dune, calling for her. I found her by running smack into her. There was another woman with her, clinging to her around the waist and dressed like a bed slave. She'd gone off to spring the girl she was brought in with.

Dune slapped me about the shoulders, screaming at me "GO GO DOLT! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO RUN!"

By then the smoke was so thick I couldn't breathe or see. We had to feel our way out along the wall and slip though a rust rotten patch of sky steel.

We ran, the three of us, on foot, away from the blaze burning behind us to where I knew visiting slavers always parked their rides. There was no other choice. We weren't making it out of here on foot with chests full of smoke.

I don't remember who decided that the three of us were going to pile up on a motorcycle. No one was doing much clear thinking.

We were being chased. Men scrambling in their rigs to round up everyone. I saw lights behind us when I turned my eyes off the road and back. There were leaning from a truck with catch poles ready.

This damn bike, piece of junk, couldn't handle the weight. Twice the bike sped just a little faster, because twice they pulled up close enough to slip a cord around a head and drag the body attached to it off the seat. I was headed southbound alone.

What a shitty promise.

I only vaguely remembered the way to Shatterbone, where I had been sold to Madame, which felt like a full lifetime ago. I knew it was South, that there was a road through the dead sea things, and that if you were going to dump somebody, you'd probably not detour too far from the road to do it out here.

I found no tire tracks in the sand. It had been too long for wind not to have covered them. Where sand slowly transitioned to hard packed salt held some tracks, which told me I was going the right way. I found an empty canteen and a mess of boot prints. This was where I stopped to search the bike, reminded of my own thirst.

Yes, there were some supplies and a half empty leather flask of water. I took one sip before remembering that, if I found him, Slit would be all dried up. I saved the water and tried to calm my bloodpump kicking in my ribs at the very real possibility of finding my lancer. A part of me was afraid to find him for every reason imaginable. I wasn't ready to face him, but I wasn't going to let him die if I could prevent that either.

On I went, eyeing the fuel gage. I wish I had found guzz in the saddle bags, but nope. Things can never be easy, can they? Always short of something. I supposed if I had found guzz, I wouldn't have found water. That's how it always is.

I didn't know what I'd find out here. That scared me too, because I was hopeful even though my head knows how narrow his chances, and my own, were out here. I was mostly expecting a corpse starting to bloat in the heat, not how I wanted to see Slit for the first time in I don't even know how long. What I came upon wasn't a corpse.

My bloodpump just about hopped out my chest to make a run for it when I found the first few tracks, which were hardly recognizable as human foot falls. It was a long groove in the salty dirt, then a dark rust colored smear. Then again and again, the smears got thicker and thicker. I realized it was from a peg leg and a raw, bloody foot. I could see that he'd hobbled in frantic circles at one point. I also found a shred of faded denim torn off on a long jagged arm of dead sea shit, then dog tracks. The animal had been following him, picking up the blood on its feet and leaving colored prints when the tracks were still fresh and wet.

My guts felt like they were twisted as I got back on the bike and walked it along the trail, calling his name as loudly as I could before I saw stars. I heard no reply. I was beginning to panic as I left the bike again to follow the trail under a great fanning canopy of sea skeleton.

This is it. This is the part where I find the body.

When I crawled under, I was blind at first from the light scorching my eyes all day. I froze and waited till my vision adjusted.

I saw bones. A man too long dead to have been left here three days ago. It wasn't Slit. Slit was to my right, on his side, curled over, looking fresher than the old bones, but not by much. He wasn't half eaten by dogs, but he didn't look very alive either.

Here come the tears, and the other fears. Another waste of cola. The leg was gone. He was all scars up the back and side all the way to his head. His wrecked mouth was dried out and eyes sunken deep. He looked not alive but his eyes were open and following me.

"Fuck, guess I'm dead then," He rasped dryly.

I laughed one stricken bark. I felt like I'd just been stabbed so deep that it cut my soul. Still a pessimistic prick.

"You look like cog fodder, mate," I said.

He wheezed at me, said nothing, but extended a middle finger from where his hand lay near his head.

The cola, I poured every drop into him, but he wouldn't let go of my arm.

He said, "M'sorry. Didn't witness. M'sorry." Then he started wheezing fast and weird. He was crying on my arm but too dried out to leak from the eyes right away.

I cringed, he was gone sand crazy, clearly. He thought we were both dead. I shook my head and looked behind me into the light. I didn't think there was enough fuel to get back to the great white. There was only one place close enough to reach. Shatterbone. He needed cola, maybe a meat mechanic.

"Shut your dry face an' save your cola, c'mon Slit." I said with wet stuff already leaking out of my own face. "C'mon we're getting the hell outta here."

I didn't expect to be grabbed at the ears, or for a sun wrecked man to have the strength to lift his arms, and I definitely didn't think he'd pull our heads together. I remembered Furiosa and her friend Valkyrie, their heads together like this.

I cried like a pup. I had to cry. I hadn't cried deep in so long and if I didn't get through with it at that moment then I wouldn't be able see the road in front of me on the bike. He just kept on with his sorrys, And great V8 my chest ached.

How dare you make me so damn happy to see you.

(Shout out to TheMilkman! Thanks for the wonderful review dude)


	13. Dr Blue

**-Wilson-**

Shatterbone can be described as Woop Woop Nowhere. It's a Japanese submarine, blown in half by torpedoes, somewhat resembling a broken bone and likely sunken during the oil wars when Australian ports were bombarded again, just like in World War Two. The place was positioned well past the edge of the continental shelf, on the great slope down into Hellscape. Only a few miles past Shatterbone, where there was once the crushing depths of the abyssal plain, there was now toxic gasses and brine so thick it that the salt builds up on tires until they crystallize solid. I've heard the stories from travelers trying to get off this rock and back to their homelands. Most never come back, others tell tales of the impassable Hellscape which is nothing but more salt.

I was pried out of the back of that trailer like a rusty nut off a stripped screw. The last I saw of Dune, She'd been in shock, didn't speak, turning pale in the face, shivering even in noon heat. One of scrud's men, the big one, hurried me along through guarded parking lots and I was made to stand along with all others from the trailer, except Dune, on a low platform formed out of the very salt under us.

It was hewn into shape with hand tools and complete with long circular benches under a tarp pavilion. The auction was quick, never thought I'd hear the high-speed jabber of an auctioneer ever again. I had been sold to some young buck with scars all over his buzzed scalp and missing a middle and index finger on the right hand. I'd know this prick as Jawbreaker, but I would call him The Bastard.

I was collected immediately, pulled by the arm through the outer compound where a tent city had formed. I'd heard about this place. These were people waiting to be vetted -or scammed out of everything they owned- before entering the inner city where the arenas were situated. Next, I was dragged through a fenced entryway which encloses the vast space between the two halves of the sub. In this space, a small city was crushed into a narrow strip.

Guards parted for The Bastard without a single question or word. Don't assume I made it easy, I made all the noise I could to be sure The Bastard knew I wasn't going to be a pleasant thrall.

I was seated on a pulled rickshaw next to The Bastard, who kept his bruising grip on my arm. We descended underground, beneath the west half of the sub rather than into at as we cut deeper into the remote island of dubious civilization. The tunnels were not a maze, they seemed to be dug out in a careful grid of subterranean roads wide enough that you had coming and going human-powered cart traffic. It reminded me of New York City, but for mole people perhaps, every intersection and block was numbered. Never mind the memory of an old man. When we disembarked and I was pulled along a little more, through what seemed to be this man's dwelling, I was shoved into what I thought was a closet, looking at five lidded oil drums.

Son of a bitch. _The s_ _on of a damn bitch._

I wasn't cuffed to an operating table, The Bastard didn't put an ankle monitor on me like I'd had the last time I was an owned man, he didn't even break my ankles so I couldn't leave, as was common practice in some places when you make a valuable acquisition. He dyed me _blue._ Dunked me head first into the oil drum on the far right, which was _full_ of this blue shit. Wouldn't tell me what it was either, but it stunk and now so did I. Apparently they did that to doctors so they were recognizable. I looked like a damn Smurf.

I couldn't step out of the office, so-called, that The Bastard had stuffed me into without being stopped and hauled back by the guards roaming tunnels, and the first two times I managed to evade them, I got swarmed by the civilian folk on the surface. It was my blue face and hands.

On my fourth attempt to leave, I had been more careful about concealing my colorful predicament. I'd fashioned a shawl from the sheets given to me to cut into rolls of bandages, wrapped it around my head, and tried to keep my hands tucked in too. I had no idea I was sweating blue into the dingy yellowed fabric. I was caught again, held up by the lot guardians until someone came to pick me up and take me back.

They had to know I was headed for the lots to steal a car, but there was no punishment. All I got in the attempt was a pat on the shoulder like I was some lost old fart who'd wandered away from the retirement village and held at the elbow until The Bastard came to spirit me away back to that hole in the wall he kept me in.

In as little three or four days -who's bothering to count anymore- my table had been bombarded with two dozen wounds that just _shouldn't happen._ Period.

Why on earth would anyone in their right mind subject themselves to sport combat, with heavy melee weapons, with what I assume are swords and axes, in our doomed timeline where effective antibiotics are a thing of the past. I had a guy who cultured mold back home in the Scavenger Lands to whip up something that _kind of_ worked, but even then it was nothing next to ol' reliable penicillin.

I'm fairly certain that at least half of the men and women I'd so far treated would later die of infection without the crucial medication. They put their money on the wrong old horse. I had no network here to trade for remedies and sterilization agents. Most of what was in my Volkswagen had been sold off. I only had a fraction of my own equipment and a pile of boxes these jackasses thought I could make use of. It was all expired, decades old bottles of decaying pills with the labels worn off and twenty times used garbage so filthy I hardly wanted to touch it myself. All of it looked like a great way to pick up hepatitis or an allergic reaction.

I wound up venting about this on a man with a simple arm laceration. He was quiet, had the crazy eyes going on, looked like he didn't particularly want to be there, but I was well past politeness. Someone was going to listen to me damn it, whether they wanted to or not. _Someone_ was going to hear what those animals did to my patients even if they had to hear it while I scrubbed out a filthy slice and probably made it worse since they wouldn't let me fill up my trusty ketchup bottle with water to properly flush these battle-bleeders out with gentle squirts. Water was apparently tight here.

"...That girl has been my patient for eleven years! Or is it twelve? Thanks to those fuckin' animals in the first place, she SHOULD be dead. _Years_ I wondered if I did the right thing, trying to treat burns like that. I thought it was a lost cause, just prolonging the poor kid's suffering. She lived, though... _Then_ brought home a War Boy! Mean prick... Guess she felt sorry for the absolute shit since he was burned bad too. His came from a car fire...

"Ah, thank God most folks rip out all the interior upholstery and most of the seats now. A car fire isn't too bad now days-days. Back in my day, if a car went up, it went UP with all the nice, flammable shit we dolled 'em up comfortably with. Hm, maybe it's worse since without all the fancy comforts the fire is survivable. At least you didn't have to go on living like that, missing legs or arms with full thickness burns. If ya went up in smoke in a car, you were just an over-done barbeque by the time paramedics and the fire department pull up...

"I don't have anything to take the sting outta the stitches yir' gonna get. Sorry, bub. They took all my good shit, including the whiskey and devil' lettuce."

He shrugged and looked away as I readied the needle and... fuck me! It was _disgusting_. What they gave me to do stitches was human hair, they had me stitching wounds with _human hair._

Poor bastard got the whole story stuffed into his ears, about Dune and her pain in the ass War Boy, how I'd probably try the lots again to make off with a car, and how I'd probably be shot for it. What's the use? Bleeding out in a parking lot trying to go help my bratty patients beats dying old and slow here in this nut farm.

"...that _cunt._ STILL butthurt about HIS problems, and they are _his_ problems. How the _shit_ can you put all the blame for YOUR shit on a person you _set on fire_ when they were a _child_. How the hell is it her fault his shitty lifestyle finally came up an' bit him in the ass! Christ, I swear to god... Scrud-"

The patient hissed and looked at me like he might snap and throw the fist balled at his side at me. Whoops, those old hands of mine were getting tense while I ranted on. Must have been a little too rough on that slice.

"Sorry," I sighed, heart sinking and beginning to feel sick to my stomach, "...never had rugrats of my own. Dune, I worry about that kid all the time. Guess she and that pain in the ass War Boy of hers are as close as I'll get to kids of my own... They killed my idiot son and sold my daughter into slavery. An' I'm too old to do anything about it."

My heart ached, chest hurt. Maybe I'd get lucky and finally have the heart attack I'd been expecting any minute for the last couple decades. My patient winced to himself, but I wasn't touching him when he did, so it wasn't my hands that tweaked him that time.

"Sorry, two more to go and you're done, Ignore me, Jus' old an' tired of people," I told him as I went back to work.

He left quickly once I was through with him and didn't bother to leave me with a name, which was fine because I'd already seen him twice and was given his alias by the brute in charge of me. Lightie Boy? I wasn't about to ask. He'd needed recommendations on treatment for his bum leg. Seemed to be an old gunshot wound and the knee never hoping to be right again. With the swelling he had, it was probably inflammation from working the wrecked joint too hard in the arena, but did he listen when I told him he needed to pull out of the tournament and stay laid up for a week or two? Nope. Otherwise, he wouldn't be in here getting a slice flushed out and stitches. He was scolded for that too. If he weren't so damn quiet he'd remind me of Slit.

Out he went while I tried to clean up the best I could on the limited supply of water I was given to work with. There was barely enough water provided to me today to boil my instruments clean, and that's after reusing it a few times. The clean water I had left was for me to drink later. Dune was always more generous with her water supply. My chest hurt again at the thought and I patted my ribs. Jesus, I hoped she was okay, even if I knew there was no way she could be.

I was setting out the needles, _fucking human hair_ , and cutlery for the inevitable next patient when Crazy Eyed Lightie Boy appeared in my doorway again. My back ached and I wasn't ready to deal with Mr. Accident Prone again so soon.

"Christ! What now, man?" I grunted, digging my thumbs into the meat of my crunching lower back. He was sheet white like he'd just looked the grim reaper right in his empty sockets.

"Thanks, Bloodbag, thanks, mate. In here? This is it?" I heard behind Lightie Boy as he shuffled aside and ducked his head at what looked like a drowned rat. It was a man soaked in sweat and so thin that he looked like a stick figure. Lightie Boy was shaking, odd, but uttered the first full sentence I'd heard out of him.

"Tell me you see him too, please," he grumbled so low I almost didn't hear him over the grunting and straining of his- uh, friend I guess. Rat boy left my line of sight to get something presumably pretty heavy.

I nodded, of course, I saw him! Can't miss a man that haggard and filthy, even in this day and age he looked worse off than I've ever seen a human being. I couldn't even tell if that skin on his arms was black from filth or necrosis.

Lightie Boy didn't move to help his friend. He palmed both sides of his head and leaned back, sliding down against the wall. He was having some kind of quiet fit. I'd have to check him in a minute, Listening to the haggard man struggling with whatever he was pulling toward the threshold was too painful. I stepped out, meaning to take a look for myself to see what he had and if I should bother with whatever this business was. When I saw what the poor man had, it felt like the air was sucked out of the hall we were in.

"Oh my _gawd_ , Slit!" I cried to a deity I'd hated for the last forty years, moved in two long steps as if I had forgotten how old my bones were, then fell on my knees to examine the patient.

God, he was beyond dehydration, sunburnt to the point that his already chewed up ears and scalp were bubbling with blisters, sole of his bare foot cooked... Everywhere I looked, he was bruised from the wreck or bashed up from everything after that. Was that a dog's bite around his ankle?

I took his pulse first, laid an ear on his chest to hear how the ticker was doing, which was bad, but he wasn't dead yet. "Lucky, lucky Idiot boy, aw good God, Slit, you absolute fuckin' lucky shit," I practically yelled at his unconscious body while the ragged boy I'd forgotten about shuffled awkwardly at my right.

"You _know_ Slit?" He asked, but there was hardly time to answer him.

"Help me get him inside, now. I- uh. SHIT. I gotta get a drip set up. Needs fluids _immediately_. Can either of you identify a- Of course you can't."

Lightie boy was still holding his head and staring off into space, which couldn't be helped, so that raggedy kid had to support Slit's lower half while I had to haul the bulk of him through the doorway and damn near throw my back out hefting him up into the operating. I hadn't even gotten a chance to clean this surface since Lightie Boy's arm was resting on it for me to stitch. It's been a long time since I had to give orders and ask for instruments.

"Bring me that leather bag in the corner, no, not that one, the one to the left, your _other_ left, now get me that water jug from the desk, I need a-" The dirty stranger pushed a coil of tubing at me, complete with drip chamber and cannula, he must have known what I'd wanted from my bag. I glanced up at him, and beneath the filth and dust encrusted to his face, I saw thick scars following cheekbones. Another War Boy.

Right, okay, if he somehow found Slit, it makes sense now why he'd drag him around to get help. War Boy brotherhood. I'd heard that their kind were practical vampires. He'd called Lighty Boy Bloodbag, hadn't he? This wasn't a blood transfusion, but he'd probably seen intravenous fluids given.

"...Alright, boy, can you stoke that fire in the corner? The lil' old charcoal grill there. Fill it up with trash from the bin and get a good fire going. Need to boil some water, clean this shit, and clean something to hold the fluids I'm gonna put into 'im... And pray to whatever bastard god you got that the water and the tubing are clean enough."

I lot more water than I was comfortable with was sacrificed on cleaning both the boy on my table and the shit I needed to work on him. Lightie Boy vanished for a while and reappeared, bringing what I assume was his own water won in the arena. Poor Raggedy Boy thanked him, called him Bloodbag again, too.

I did what I could. The water left over was a mere few inches left in the bottom of the old liquor bottle Lightie Boy brought. I told the two men to split it and drink that up. I was fine, I'd be delivered more water in the morning as pay for the work done on fighters the day before and so that I could keep working. I was starting to think the water was currency here, which was sick but somehow not all that unreasonable.

I'd cleaned up the worst of Slit, the blisters, the foot, the New Ugly all over his face from wrecking his precious car, and the friction sores on his left leg. The rest was damage I couldn't reach into him and fix. I wondered if he could be bleeding internally, or have a blood clot somewhere creeping along like a big red slug through an artery. He was splotched in bruising as he lay in my bunk where we moved him to. I couldn't tell if he looked like a bunch of dark, inky smears from the accident or an ass beating. He was lucky to be alive at all, he'd be even luckier if he ever regained consciousness.

Lightie Boy seemed to be getting his head on right. In one of the piles of garbage and hoarded crap against the back wall, he found a somewhat alright looking pole and hook to suspend the old plastic bottle we had to use in place of a fluid bag. Only a little rusted.

Slit's ticker was sounding just a little better after a couple hours, not so rapid and faint. I could finally sit. He had Dune's vest. It was somehow still clenched in both of his fists and I couldn't pry it out of his fingers. Even this far gone he was stubborn as a goat. Couldn't clear that away from him even if I worried he might rip out his IV in that position if he moved. At least for now, he was alright, just had to watch him closely and see what happens.

Lightie boy sat on the floor, his braced leg lying outstretched and the other pulled in close to his chest as he once again seemed to zone off into the abyss. Raggedy Boy sat on the end of the narrow cot, watching Slit as if he expected the unconscious body to quit breathing. That _could_ happen, so I didn't try to spare him his worry with false reassurance. It seemed to be clear as I watched them, all three of these men must have known each other, _somehow_. Why else would Lighty Boy help Raggedy Boy, and why else would Raggedy Boy help Slit?

"...Either one of you wanna let me in on how y'all know my patient?" I asked. Lightie boy shuddered and Raggedy Boy let his hand drop from where it had anxiously covered his thickly whiskered mouth.

"Slit, he's my lancer, or _was,_ " he whispered with a quiver in his voice. He was shaking, I suppose from hunger.

"Where did you come from? No one lives out on the salt, not for long? How'd you know where to find him?" I asked. This was all sounding too much like serendipitous coincidence not to be suspicious.

"A Scav Country lady told me where he was, she told me where-" he sniffled miserably and held himself tightly, "...her name is Dune, she told me where they left him."

My old ticker thudded hard. _Dune_. " _Where_ is she,"

Raggedy Boy shook his head, guilt crinkling his already deathly thin face, "They caught her again. Dunno what they did with her after that."

I leaned back in my seat and looked into the light of the flickering shop lamp hanging from the ceiling to keep my eyes from shedding tears. Scrud was my owner before Kay sprung me loose all those years ago. I knew the bastard. He kept his ugly promises. Dune probably wasn't dead, but would be after a few months inhaling rock dust at The Bullet Farm.

"She's alive, for now," I told us both, just to convince myself it wasn't too late for sanity's sake.

Lightie sighed bitterly and I looked to him. He was cringing as if something had bitten him, but got up and turned toward the doorway, "Gotta go," he muttered before leaving.

Raggedy Boy looked wounded at the sight of him going. I lifted a hand and waved a finger. "He'll be back. We work for the same prick," that didn't seem to explain enough to him so I sighed. Ah, I wasn't completely in the know of how everything worked around here either... "It's- alright, from what I've heard in my time and gathered over the past few days, four different clans are the ruling class around here. Lightie Boy is a hired fighter for one clan, and I'm the new doctor for them fighters. Old doc must've kicked the bucket. Anyway, he so much as sneezes and he'll land on my table. Heh, at least these bastards provide good health insurance."

The boy's brows knitted themselves together at the joke. I forgot, he wouldn't understand. I shook my head and patted my knee to get his attention again. "He _will_ be back. Hey, what's your name?"

"Nux," he said quietly as he stared at the floor. What a pitiful kid. I felt awful for him, whatever it was that he'd been through. Calluses on his ankles from shackles was the only clue I needed to make a guess at what circumstances he'd crawled out of.

Yeah, I'm an old softy. I went hungry that night, let Nux have-at my bar of dried- uh, whatever it was, that they had given me as daily rations. He slept on the floor next to the bunk and Slit with my flimsy privacy curtain drawn. Thankfully it was already late and no one else landed on my table that night. I slept in an old desk chair, gripping a scalpel, just in case someone showed up and had something to say about treating patients that weren't covered by the clan who now owned me.

The boy and I spoke more over the following days. I told him of my escape attempts, he told me of a bike he'd had to sell to afford the entry fee at the gate. We both cursed the place. Buying his way in had meant trading the bike to merchants for water, and then trading that water to gate keepers to pass. The boy was kind, what few ounces of water he had left once he was in, he gave that to Slit in the night as they Slept in an ally of the shanty town above. He'd slipped into kind of comatose by morning. Nux was lucky to run into Lighty Boy by chance. He told me about him too, a road warrior, though I found it hard to believe he or Nux had any direct interaction with the women who toppled Joe Moore. That sounded like tall tales, but his story telling was exciting and compelling enough to suspend disbelief so long as he was speaking.

The sleeping situation stayed the same as it had been on the first night for a few days until I was walking around bent over. I had to empty boxes and stack moldy cardboard just so these old bones weren't laying directly on patterned steel all night. The boy got some cardboard too, for his dangerously lean and fragile body.

Slit was hardly responsive when I looked after him, but Nux was tending him at night and seemed to have the ability to get Slit to swallow mouthfuls of water and bites of food, pre-chewed since he couldn't even lift his head on his own. Then the boy would sleep a few hours and rise before even the horrible seagulls who circled this place. He was gone during the day most of the time and would come back with stolen sips of water and crumbs of rations. Sometimes he brought live mice and rats to skin and roast over the fire I used to boil water. He was adaptable and resourceful, but putting himself at incredible risk. Every day, I worried he'd get caught stealing from the townsfolk.

It was good that Nux was usually away before dawn and didn't come back until dusk, because that's when The Bastard would come to drop off water and rations. It was on the tenth day that he made commentary about my dropping weight.

"You look thinner in the face," He pointed out, "Have you been feeding patients? That's not your job."

"You never mind what I prescribe to patients! And you never mind my face either!" his criticism irked me, but so did the fact that sharing my rations with the two boys in my care was already beginning to show. He didn't care for my tone.

I was scruffed by the back of my neck, like an old cat, while the back of my shirt was lifted and the waistband of my pants tugged on. My belt had a fresh hole poked in it. The Bastard growled at me like a bear and let me go. I hadn't been this incensed with a man actually standing in my presence in years, I was so ticked-off that I mistakenly felt young enough to turn around and try slugging at a man half my age. He had only to step back and lean away to avoid the impotent swing before turning to leave as calmly as he arrived.

" _Stop_ being charitable. It gets you nothing." he commanded, and I humphed. I wasn't going to listen.

I heard the springs in my cot creak and heard Slit hiss. He hadn't come around yet, but he was starting to shift around and rouse just enough to mutter nonsense whenever he needed the shitter. The Bastard turned, looking at me with the energy of an exasperated parent. That look almost overrode the panic which was probably setting me up to have a coronary. Didn't like that look.

"..Ah...AH! Well, if you wouldn't man-handle me!" I tried playing it off as if that noise had come out of me.

Jawbreaker sighed, held me and my protests at bay with little more than a single arm, and pulled back the privacy curtain to see what I'd been hiding from him.

"How long've you had that?"

"He's a patient, damn it. One of MY patients," there's a deeper meaning in those words, "Take 'im and I swear to god I will vivisect the next slab of breathing meat you push at me!"

"THAT has to go, Doctor. I can't afford to have you patching up every sob story that wanders-" the man paused mid-sentence, leaning down at Slit. I tried to pull him back and away, but it was no use. The Bastard was twice my weight easily and built like a boulder.

The Bastard curled his fingers into Dune's vest from where it lay on Slit's chest. The War Boy's eyes popped open, bloodshot as he snarled deliriously and held on as Jawbreaker lifted both the torn garment and the man attached to it off his back into a near sitting position.

"That ain't yours, Bastard!" I bellowed, evil shit-stain, taking comfort from the sick!

He yanked it free of Slit's grip and let him flop back to the cot, growling and clawing at his shirt, searching for what was stolen in his feverish haze.

I tried snatching it back, but The Bastard clapped a hand around my throat. "When that man can talk, you tell him if he wants this back, he'll have to come to my office and get it." He seethed at me, breath hot. I shuddered to imagine what this could mean for my patient. He get me go again, steadied me while I caught my breath until I swatted at him to fuck off.

He dropped my ration bar on my desk as he left, only it wasn't one bar. It was two.


	14. Dreamscapes

**-Slit-**

The nutter lifted my head and poured cola into me, hand fed me because I was too rusted out to care for myself, and I thanked her as the memory played itself out.

She'd look so confused, but Dune always smiled after a moment.

This is what I should have done all that time ago instead of spitting the maggot-tucker she fed me back into her face. I should have had some V8-damned gratitude, but I had not known then what would happen or what that lonesome hermit would one day mean to me.

I don't know when I forgot that I was just remembering, I thought I was granted a miracle, plunked back down in the past to do it over, do it right this time.

Dune was always shocked with me, like she somehow knew I wasn't supposed to be like this, thankful. I wasn't supposed to know what I knew, or care for her, or want to be near her, but after some time, she'd smile and crack fond jokes about her 'Soft Boy'.

She always deserved more than what she got out of me those first two years. She should have gotten better than a layabout, reeking, bitter sack of self pity. This time she got what little of me she could make good in the doomed version of our time together.

She was always smiling. She smiled when I'd try to show her how to fix her mother's motorcycle and the car, because this time I didn't lose patience and call her a mediocre pedestrian or kick her out the passenger side to walk home on own. She smiled when I told her, honestly, that she was chrome when she held a rifle in her hands. She smiled curiously, maybe not believing me at first, when I told her we shouldn't go out to settle the bet over whether or not a convoy was moving through the scav lands monthly.

I told her I had a bad feeling about it, that day and the convoy. She insisted that it was sunny and lovely out, argued that she wanted me to see for myself, but eventually, I convinced her to stay home.

We rode out the storm there in her caverns. She never had to almost die of lightning strike. That night I kissed the place on her head where she wouldn't have a scar this time. Again, she was confused. I lied to her, told her I had a dream that everything went wrong when we would go to spot the convoy. It was just a little lie so she wouldn't suspect that I knew enough to meddle in the flow of time, switch everything up so we'd always be okay. We got tangled up that night, for the first time, while the sandstorm beat the slopes of the mountains furiously.

In this second chance, I hadn't pissed away two years. I knew who I was, I knew how I felt, and I knew Dune. I knew she'd need time to stop looking at me and seeing a man sized pup, and I knew she was just as closed off as I'd been.

Doing it all again, this time, I could see that Dune was never really bodily shameless. She just... Didn't think anyone could get past those scars. So why even bother with modesty? She didn't feel chrome, and that must be why she thanked me in our doomed versions for touching her. I realized this when she thanked me again, in those same words and in first person all over again.

I told her, "Valkyries are supposed to have scars, yeah?" and from then on I'd call her that from time to time, My Valkyrie, because she'd swooped in like one to lift me up when she found me at deaths door.

She kept smiling. She smiled when I took her to the Citadel and she saw green for the first time in a decade and a half, and she smiled when she told me she was happy... Then the dream ended.

It was like a pair of hands had snatched her away to pull her, still smiling, down a black corridor. All that was left was her torn vest in my hands, stained in red flecks of my dried blood. Pain had come back, and now the hands in the darkness came back to tear away her vest too.

Other hands, somehow familiar, came after the last trace of the Scavenger had disappeared. Cola was poured in, mashed grit was pushed past my teeth with a pair of fingers for me to swallow, and I was looked after while I couldn't move for myself.

This time I knew it wasn't Dune. It was someone else. I could hear low voices jawing back and forth and sometimes I recognized both in that way when you're not even half aware but know on some deep instinct that you're with people you know. Knew the voices or not all sounds and smells were like garbled radio static in my skull.

The decrepit doctor and my driver's ghost were there. Nux looked like absolute hell when I'd manage a look at him, so it must have been another dream, or the process of dying. The wrong side of the gates must have decayed my driver's very soul. The ghost had raged once, not at me, then started on a rambling, panic fueled string of nonsense, then he went quiet and just loomed nearby.

He looked at me, and I looked at him when l had the energy to force my seemingly weighted eyelids open. Sometimes he'd say something, lean excitedly toward me and jabber, but it never made any sense. It was just more static and his hair haloed face seemed to warp the longer my eyes were open. I couldn't say much either, it would be badly stitched together noise that should've been questions. Sometimes words got switched.

"Where am I?" became "Place. Place. Scrawn." Then more gibberish in my ears from Nux, Wilson's low drone, and I'd have to turn my head away and close my eyes before it all started to rub me raw and piss me off to the point of wanting to scream. I couldn't understand anything. Couldn't find Dune, couldn't remember why I was dead -or on my way to death- and seeing ghosts.

I was supposed to be holding Dune's vest for her, couldn't find that either. I couldn't hold myself together in whatever second plain of suffering I'd been sucked into.

I started truly remembering eventually. Nux, his ghost, a motorcycle, his bony back to lean on and the wheezing of an exceptionally po-dunk piece-of-shit motor under us. This, ridiculous as it was, had happened. I remembered being left in quiet, shaded places, fed rationed sips of aqua-cola, and his shivering arms straining to pull me elsewhere a handful of times. So his ghost had saved me, and I seemed to be alive somehow?

This made even less sense as my skull meat began pulling its pieces back together, but the memory was vivid and I couldn't deny it. It didn't recall like dreams that always seem veiled by dust and easy to forget.

The first day my brain had a few brief moments of competence, I saw a wall of thin fabric and could detect movement beyond it, silhouetted against light from an overhead lamp. It was someone pacing slowly and fiddling with things that clink and clang like metal. My face pulled oddly around a cringe. It stung, so I touched it and found the knots of six stitches over my chin and two more through my left eyebrow. Right, my face hit the steering wheel when I wrecked Shirley. I tortured my broken teeth with the tip of my tongue and hissed at the jolt it sent through my jaw. I must have been real hard to look at after getting clobbered by Featherknife and getting my face rearranged in a crash. Maybe I really should have worn a seatbelt.

I remembered Dune, her screaming as the trailer doors slammed closed, so my guts churned violently and a sob left me. I dreamed of that next, on a repeating cycle, but with Nux's ghostly mutterings constantly creeping into the memory.

"Slit? Hey, hey, just a dream, mate," and then he'd nudge my shoulder with his knuckles and leave his cool, thin hand there.

"Aw, mate... Hey, shh. Shit, Jaw's coming. Shh... Slit! Shhh!" he'd said urgently once.

Another time, his ghost was crammed into this musty, piss stinking cot with me and praying to V8. I smelled the reek of infection all around me, but not coming from me. Nearby, I could hear someone else retching and shitting their brains out and practically taste the pungent stench. Wilson was talking over this repulsive noise, going on about a lack of anything he could do about this to a fifth person in the room.

The ghost behind me was disturbed by it. He shuddered through every mantra and sacred hymn he whispered. When the grotesque song of sickness quieted and the stench faded, I assumed in that quarter-aware state that the sod patient of Wilson's had carked it.

My driver's ghost still stayed close at night, vanishing in the day when Wilson was awake. I found it easier to exist when Nux was there. Sometimes he was just a ghost, sometimes he seemed -and smelled- alive, and I could never seem to decide which he must be.

In those rare but strengthening coherent moments it was obvious, I'd been delirious. Ghosts can't drag you out of your soon-to-be grave. My skull flesh must have cobbled together one giant cluster of insanity and slapped the likeness of a Nux who looked as rust as I felt over it.

The last day I spent lying there on that damp cot, I really expected the floor to be closer. I rolled half out before figuring out the floor was a full foot lower than I thought, The rest of me followed and flopped to the floor with all the grace of a wet bath rag. The hanging curtain flew aside and the light from the other side burned my eyes.

"Wilson?" I growled through the throbbing in my sockets. It certainly sounded like the old meat mender when he shuffled over.

"Good God, son," definitely Wilson.

He was trying to help me off the floor. As much help as I'd taken from the ancient bastard, I still couldn't stand being assisted by him and I let him know that with a curse. I'm not sure why I hated this. It was fine when Dune helped.

It hit me then that if Wilson was here, wherever here is, then Dune might be here. Maybe we'd all been recovered somehow, maybe the crow fishers turned back and... Or maybe Crank made it to the Citadel and convinced them to send a detachment from the patrol teams to come find us. Maybe this was the Bloodshed.

"Dune?" I tried, squinting through the light as my eyes adjusted. I couldn't find her, the walls didn't look like the stone of the Bloodshed either, it looked like steel panels and packed dirt exposed where some were fallen off.

Wilson didn't have to say anything, his sighing as he turned me to face the grungy cot told me everything I needed to know.

"Bullet Farm?" I don't know why I bothered to ask. He sighed again and spontaneous imagery assaulted my skull, of Dune coated gray with rock dust and hacking up splatters of red into her hands. I wanted to vomit.

I'd fix this, I had to... Wait. Her Vest. Where was it? It wasn't on the cot, I didn't see it on the floor or under the frame of it either. I started digging around the crumpled pile of sweaty sheets balled at the foot of the cot and found my pants in there. Wilson tried to stop me. He knew.

"It isn't there, Boy," he said as he grabbed at my wrist.

"Where is it! I'm supposed to-" I shook him off on reflex as I turned to look at him. V8, he... Maybe this was another nightmare. "Why the fuck are you blue?!"

"Never mind the blue!" he huffed.

He was trying to make me sit, which would probably have been a good idea since as soon as I put any real weight on my foot, I could feel the patterned floor biting into a thick scabs. I wobbled into the wall and landed on my ass to pull up the foot and look at the screeching sole.

My heel and the blade of my foot was just one big brown crust, every toe pad was a popped blister starting to harden over. Cooked from walking barefoot on hot salt. I could probably wrap it and walk on it, but I wouldn't be going anywhere fast. Wilson was taking advantage of the fact that I was on the floor, leaning to brace on my shoulders with his palms to keep me there.

"You know where you are? Know who I am? What can you remember?" This was his work-mode switching on.

"I was on the salt, now where are we?" I skipped his questions and asked my own.

"Shatterbone," he answered before continuing, "Slit, there's something we need to talk about, if you're all-there upstairs..."

I didn't care at that very moment and let my ears tune him out. I might not have been 'all-there', I felt like I was going full speed but no-one had control of the wheel. I was still looking around the room for the vest. It was just a little scrap of clothing, it shouldn't matter that much, but it felt like I might start to implode if I didn't have it. My hands were clenching around handfuls of my pants, and I was still fumbling to get my hands in the pockets to look for that tiny trace of the scav. The world was starting to fish-tail out of control.

"Slit," he wrapped his hand around my wrist again, more firmly, "it's not here."

"Where is it?!" I shrieked into his face. It was like I'd finally snapped. The rest raced out of my mouth as if I was a pup with a scrambled head from his first time doing war. "I'm supposed to have it for her when I find her!"

It shouldn't matter that much, some meek voice of logic whimpered from the back of my mind because the vest wasn't a component necessary to rescue Dune from the gulags of The Bullet Farm. I was having some kind of fit, vision tunneling and starting to feel like I might lose consciousness all over again.

Wilson sucked in a deep breath with his eyes practically bugging out... Ugh, why is he that color? It wasn't helping with whatever was happening to me. I thought the ground was shaking, no, it was me.

"Don't. Get. Up. You're having a panic attack. Slit, breathe..." There was a tone there I didn't recognized out of Wilson. It made me listen to him, he's the expert on fixing people, after all.

I couldn't look at him, he looked so wrong right now, so I had to mash my eyes shut, grip whatever was within reach -which was Wilson- because I felt like I was going to to vibrate out of existence. He counted over the breathing thing and kept praising me when I didn't choke on air. I don't understand the method, but it worked after time. I wasn't dying, or collapsing in on myself. Still felt like rust when I crawled back into the moment, though. I was folded on myself like a jackknife between Wilson and the cot frame, I was getting enough air, but I still needed to know where her vest was.

"...where is it." I asked flatly.

"Slit-"

"Where, Wilson?" I could tell by the quiver of his voice that he was avoiding the truth. He was afraid of something.

"...Jawbreaker. Ack! He's some lower management grunt around here. He took it a few days back and- HEY! I SAID DON'T GET UP!"

Over his shoulder, I could see my leg propped against the wall on the other side of the room. On my palms and shredded foot, I shuffled around him for it, dragging my pants behind me. My pants stunk like everything that could spew out of a fleshy body, but I pulled them on anyway and checked my leg for damage before pulling that on over the carefully bandaged stump.

"I need something to wrap my foot," I stated simply.

"You need to git your stubborn ass back in bed! You're in no condition to go anywhere!" he bellowed as he struggled to get up from the floor.

"I've been worse," I told him, ignoring the pangs in my left elbow as I reached up for a roll of what looked like bandages sitting by the edge of a narrow table to wrap up that foot.

"You've been unconscious for a week and a half!" He revealed.

I looked at him then, saw on his stained face that he wasn't lying. Fuck, that long?

"You don't even know where the bastard is!" Wilson continued to strengthen his case. He's right, I am stubborn, but he didn't know just how stubborn I could get.

"I'll ask someone, since I'm getting nowhere asking you,"

"You. Are. In. No. Condition-"

"I'm dandy!" I snapped, repeating a phrase I've heard him say before and not even completely believing myself as I rose from the floor. That shut him up for a second or two.

I thought the loss of my leg and the infection to follow that had been the worst I'd ever feel. Well, how I felt when I stood was pretty damn close. Wilson followed me out of the room and down an empty and dim dirt corridor. He was still protesting as I hobbled.

"You are a whole-fucking-goat!"

"What's a goat?"

"You are,"

"STOP," that was neither me nor Wilson. We both turned to look and the old man spat a curse.

There were two men. Both had faces painted in black and rust red stripes striking over brows and eyes from hair line to chin. They were wearing leathers and pauldrons made from some kind of old combat sport gear. I've seen the stuff before, you were lucky to get ahold of good protection like that back home. They must have some kind of rank here and were probably the ones to ask if I wanted to find whoever stole Dune's vest

"I'm looking for-"

"We know who you are," he cut me off.

The insult burning in my skull had to be let go. Not like I could make anyone pay for a slight in this shape. The one on the left seized Wilson by the elbow as he grumbled.

"C'mon pops, back to the E.R.,"

"Fuck yourself," Wilson barked, but the man just flexed the hand wrapped around the ancient limb he held and forced a tight lipped smile. I guessed this might be a regular thing. Still didn't like the looks of it though.

I was next, left elbow grabbed and yanking myself out of his grip on reflex because he tweaked my wrecked shit. I was grabbed instead around the back of the neck in a sweaty palm and pushed further down the tunnel, away from Wilson. I had to bite my tongue and roll with it. I was pretty sure this asshole was armed. He seemed like some kind of security around here. I know when I'm in no position to shit on boots for the joy of it. It was a better idea to try remembering every turn that was taken through these dirt tunnels so I could get back.

Left. Right. Left. It was all sharp corners around here, like a grid on a the finest blueprint paper only imperators ever got to touch.

I was palmed across the back of the head and shoved down through a low doorway, pushed further in and stumbled with the throbbing of my foot, then held around the back of the neck again. The room was lit up with oil lamps and a few spark bulbs too. Four more men, dressed and painted the same as the one who gripped me, looked up from where they sat on stools and crates cramped about a small table. They were playing some kind of game on a pattern carved on the table top with trinkets and little pebbles as pieces.

"One of you, get Jaw. The rest of you, quit playing with yourselves and find something productive to do that isn't in here."

They cleared out quick. I could see that they didn't have as much paint on their faces. It probably indicated rank, much like what I was used to at home.

I was swaying some. Felt sick, didn't really want to stand anymore. When my knee buckled, the painted man let me drop out of his grip and took a step back. Smart of him to put some distance between us even if there was no need. If I wasn't really half corpse, I might be feigning weakness and hiding a shiv to jam into his thigh gusher.

Wilson was right. I wasn't in any condition to be out of a cot. I almost passed out sitting in the middle of the floor, however long I was there. I was sore in ways that went as deep as every bone. My fingers even ached if I curled them. The narrow bunks scattered around the room and on the floors looked incredibly inviting.

I was nudged at the back with the toe of a boot. "Can you keep walking on your own?"

I turned a bit to glance at up him with my good eye. I couldn't help it, I'm still me even when I know I'm good as a dog with no teeth.

"Aw, you wanna carry me, mate? Real sweet of ya." I grinned up as he cut his eyes away and rolled his shoulders, apparently electing to ignore me now as he admired a wall.

It was quite a wait. My ass was numb by the time somebody poked their head through the doorway and muttered something. I was scooped off the floor under the arms like an invalid, though, I guess I was. My protests were ignored and I was cursed for reeking like a piss-pot.

Both the man who brought me here and the one who came after the long wait hauled me along without giving me another chance to walk. My metal foot dragged and the occasional catch of my flesh heel on the floor was enough pain for me to keep it held up and just allow myself to be moved like a lot of scrap in a burlap bag.

Right. Left. Right. We were going back the way we came. We passed Wilson's, I caught sight of his horror stricken face through the doorway as we passed.

Down that hall all the way to the end and up a dirt ramp to a locked hatch. Sunlight was blinding as it opened, good thing I wasn't doing my own walking then. I heard and felt through the rattling of my metal leg rather than saw that we were moving over steel flooring. Clunk clunk clunk clunk. My eyes were still adjusting to bright light when we slipped back into near darkness. I saw only sun-scorch orbs in the blackness.

A windowed room was where the trek ended. It was furnished in some old world shit, a folding couch, a desk, and a slate board on the wall with names and brackets scrawled all over it. I recognized this, we had one and used the same system for fights down in the Citadel Fury Pits.

There was a shelf, across from the circular window to illuminate it, full of miscellaneous shit. Trinkets, smooth rocks, a big chunk of salt crystals, a few word burgers. Beyond that, the walls were all scribbled on with trailing lines of words I was too tired to struggle reading.

I was dropped on my ass after a quick look around. They both strode out of the room single file while another stranger made his way in on their left. He must've been the face-breaker or whatever.

I don't know what made me think I could demand anything from anybody, let alone this man. I couldn't tell how tall he was from the floor, but I could see that he was fit, healthy, full-life, someone who wasn't a stranger to a fight. He wore no paint on his face, no shirt. I assume everyone would recognize him by the scattered scars which reminded me of what Dune once said of this place. 'Shatterbone is for scum suckin' wasteland gladiators,' she'd said to me in the bog when we stayed with the Crow Fishers.

This man was or had been in the arena many times. The scar across his lower belly was so deep that the tissue had become grey at its center and the muscle kinked with traumatic deformity. He needed no decoration to be unforgettable and intimidating. I hadn't even taken notice that he had a face. My eyes scanned upward.

Blond. Grey eyes. Ears like a car driving with both the doors open, but you could hardly find that flaw ripe for mockery when the face on him looked like it was chiseled out of a boulder with a jack hammer. A pissed off boulder, actually. I felt like a flea.

"...vest?" was all that came slithered of me, and I abruptly felt like I had to take a wicked piss.

That stone face only further resembled stone. He moved through the room without shifting his leer from me as he sat behind the desk and rifled through the drawer. I couldn't see what he was doing, so struggled to stand without making myself sound any more pathetically rusted than I was.

The vest, familiar patches and a rising Sun stitched into it in fading yellow thread. He was spreading it over the surface of the desk. In a moment of exhausted stupidity, I immediately stumbled a step and reached for it. I almost lost a finger tip as the thick shaft of a blade came down to wedge it's tip between the grain of the wood. That snapped me out of the stupor I'd been in.

He stood, looming a hand length taller than I stood and leaning over the desk toward me, fist still clenched around the handle of the blade and the wood creaking under his weight as he braced himself on his other palm. This man could kill me without the smallest measure of effort right now, and he could make sure I knew that without uttering a single word.

"I need to know where you got this," he said so calmly that I was both confused and yanked out of my moment of terrible, mortal fear.

"What?"

"Where did this vest come from, War Boy?"

I blinked, looking between the vest and the arena beast leaning over it. I could see that the tears had been neatly repaired with scrap cloth that almost matched and careful stitches. He fixed it?

"...I'm not a patient man," for a second time he commanded my attention.

How was I supposed to answer that? I knew it was Dune's mothers before it was hers, how would it matter to this stranger in any way, unless. Yes, I knew who he was, she'd described him to me months ago in the bog, him and the oldest brother, Russel.

"You're Flick, you're her brother."

He sat slowly with a sigh that hit my ears the way a mongrel mutt's growl would, "No, no I'm not."

He plucked the blade from the desk top with a hollow thunk, then toyed with it as he held the vest over the spread fingers of his other hand. Two fingers were missing from his right hand.

I was confused, he must have known Dune back then, her mother too. He dropped the vest into his lap and began to twist at the bluntly cut bristles of hair on the side of his head, just like Dune always did when she was stressed. Was he lying to me? I don't know what my face was doing, but he seemed to be able to read the fact that I didn't believe what he'd just claimed.

"...Whoever you think I am, you're wrong," he said to me with the certainly of knowing the sun would always rise in the West.

"I'm looking at what she described, she thinks all of her kin are dead,"

"They are. Flick and Russel died their first go-round in the arena. I'm the Jawbreaker, I can't be anyone else. I've been here too long... I assume Kay has passed?"

It was a lot to process, I just nodded, he looked away and winced before speaking again. "What are you do Dune?"

I shook my head, reminded of Ardith and her questioning. "We just- we go around together. Get on okay. I trust her." I was lying, it was more than that now, so much that I couldn't cope with the fact that I wasn't at all capable of going to her right now. I kept feeling the sensation of an imminent spew of chunks every time I remembered where she'd be by now.

"Where is she?" he asked the question I dreaded.

I couldn't, I shook my head. I couldn't look at him and answer that. My throat felt like it was going to close up.

His lips thinned, but he stood and stepped around the desk to push the vest into my hands, then pushed me until I had no choice but to crumple up on that fold-up couch.

"Is she alive?"

His final question I could nod to, and sweet V8 I hoped I was right. A jug of water was set down next to me. Fuck, I didn't want another attack, not here with this not-quite-stranger.

"Rest, drink. I'll take you back to the doctor-"

The door few open and someone else with a painted face stood under the frame, flapping a hand to get attention.

"The old coot and some bone-bag are out here accusing us of murdering Smiley-Face here." he called in, "Could you? Please? Gauge is this close to decking the ol' Wrinkly."

Jawbreaker growled through his teeth, "Jus' let 'em in here, I was about to have somebody come escort him back anyway."

Old wrinkly coot? Wilson? Yup. It wasn't long at all before I saw him -still a weird-ass blue- clumping his way through the doorway. He clutched his chest and threw back his head with his brand of melodramatic relief, but there was something behind him. Looked like a giant mess of hair and wretched clothes being worn by a corpse. It was some spindly little wretched looking bloke holding onto the back of Wilson's shirt.

Eyes though. Huge, blue, ghost eyes. He smiled, and I saw his yellow teeth under the scraggled mustache.

"Slit!" Nux, not a ghost, cried out my name.

And then I chundered onto my lap


	15. Accountability

**-Slit-**

It was just one thing too many. Two people in the room called out the names of their deities in revulsion, Wilson cursed but not at me, and then there was the ratty ghost, loping at me on legs too thin to look fit for supporting any weight.

I had hot bile in my lap and my fists up. It was too much, I couldn't process what or who I was looking at, so... He wound up on his ass with a bloody mouth while I stood there, on the futon with my back against the wall, choking on air with vomit dribbling down the front of my slacks.

There was shouting, somebody roaring, "Who are you?" and "What the fuck! What the fuck are you?" It was me, I was howling that.

Wilson joined in, "Git down from there before you fall out and crack your head open!"

"Who is that?" Flick or Jawbreaker or whoever the fuck he was fumed, pointing down at the rat-ghost on the floor.

"Ask 'im yourself! Slit, come down, c'mon... Will somebody get their thumb outta their ass and help me before he hurts himself!?" the senior threw orders at everyone.

The world was spinning and pulsing darkness consumed the edges of my vision. Once Wilson and Jaw pulled me down, the tunneled vision cleared but was replaced by stars shooting around the edges of my eyes. I was being restrained loosely, sat down on the floor against another wall with Jaw's arm thrown across my torso so I couldn't move. He also, thankfully, held out an arm to stop the ghost before I could kick him away with my whole but only somewhat good leg.

Nux, a dead thing, just kept trying to get closer, arguing with Jaw as he tried to reach around his blocking forearm to touch me until Wilson pulled him by the back of the shirt to stop him.

"Just back up a minute! This'as gotta be like Night of the Living Dead to 'im," Wilson said.

"What?!" Nux voiced his own as well as everyone else's confusion.

"He probably thinks you're dead, and he woke up this morning not even sure where the hell he was, ease up."

Things felt unreal, like I was standing outside myself watching all of this.

"Mate, it's me, I came and got you jus' like she told me to," Nux said reaching out again over Jaw's thick forearm.

It came to me, that I could incredibly vaguely remember being told this while I was fed cola, while the ghost spewed more cola from his eyes, but at the time I might've thought the ghost had been sent via Dune's prayers or something. I was so, so confused.

I couldn't speak, all I could do was stare at him in baffled disbelief. I was still doing nothing but gawking and ogling when Jaw let him have me. I was leaning back to look at Nux more clearly while he kept on pulling at me to bring me closer. In an out-of-skull state, I was trying to scrub the blood of his split lip out of the hair around his mouth because it disturbed me worse than anything else at that particular moment. Never mind the fact that a man I thought was a corpse three minutes ago was practically in my lap and trying to wipe chunder out of the stitches in my chin and chattering around my right palm.

"Thought you were dead! Then thought you were gonna quit on me again, then thought they were gonna shred ya for bein' an arsehole! Ugh, you stink."

"Gotten a whiff of your own breath lately?" I jabbed back as my head began screwing itself on right.

Jawbreaker and Wilson were murmuring over us. It felt like another fucky dream to be disappointed about when I'd inevitably wake up, but I never woke up. Nux and Wilson helped me hobble back to that sweat soaked and piss stained cot. I got a short explanation that my pants were trash. Cola was tight, and to be used for drinking or trading only unless you were a doctor. Even given flexibility for Wilson's meat mending services, washing was for instruments and cutlery only.

Nux kept on talking endlessly about this place and what he's had to do to get ahold extra aqua-cola. If I wasn't looking at his haggard face I kept phasing out of my head and sliding back into thinking I was home at the Citadel. My brains were still fried, and by the time the puke was cleaned from my face with a dry rag, I was so damn tired I couldn't sit up.

I was lying there, considering all the rage I'd held onto for Nux for so long but lost along the way, wondering how Dune could have told him to go find me, how he was alive and why he looked like this, and where Larry and Barry went.

Nux wasn't right. He shook all night, jerked at any sudden sound, crawled into the cot and put himself under my left arm just as he had when we were pups. He also winced at the sound of a woman's voice when one came to visit Wilson in the night to have something looked at while he gripped my arm.

I asked where he came from, hoping the Citadel under new rule hadn't done this to him. No, where he'd been was a kind of hell beyond my imagination. It wasn't something I didn't think could exist, but it was appalling to the highest degree. He was held in servitude to a gang who'd populated an old Scrotus camp, like salt on an injury to be tortured in a place that once belonged to a sort of War Boys.

He just shook worse the more he talked, so I quit asking about that place and tried something else, a trick I learned from living with Dune. It was hard to find anything else to talk about. I hadn't seen him in years, but we couldn't exactly catch up because thinking about the last three years involved thinking about Dune and I just couldn't do that right now without having a fit. Him filling me in on what he'd been doing would be more shaking and sniveling out of him. We talked about home instead, but it wasn't much better.

Everything had been shit before that final war. The food had been shit, his health had been shit, I'd been shit. We both remembered the fighting, the resentment, how bad it got before the end of everything. Talking of and recalling this could only lead to one thing.

"...Slit," he shuddered and quit grasping at my wrist. "I was afraid of you, what you were gonna do if I failed again, or got hold of me after I screwed it all up right in front of Immortan. Thought, maybe you hated me since I got so weak. Thought you might jus' kill me yourself after what I did."

I my guts churned as I thought about it and what I'd felt when I saw him spitting guzz into the war rig's intake, because he'd been right to be afraid. Completely right. A phantom of the anger I used to carry around like a badge of honor surfaced, overshadowed by words I'd spoken to Dune once. The door swings both ways, or it doesn't swing at all.

"I did, an' I think I might've if I got the chance," I told him, knowing it'd hurt and unsure if I said that for the sake of honesty or because the black pit of sludge which made up my soul had demanded that pound of flesh for petty grudges.

He wormed his way out from under my arm and sat on the floor by the cot instead. I watched his bone thin shoulders hunch and his back tense. He wouldn't look at me.

"I needed you, missed you, but hated you, every day. Because of what you did to me ever since you got it up in your head that I jus' wasn't livin' up to your stupid standards. Way Dune talked, it sounded like the War Boy I came up with was dead an' somethin' else sprung up outta his rotten body... If he isn't dead, I will leave you here, in your own shit and piss to rot, because I'm not letting anyone do that to me anymore."

He lay himself down then on the thin stack of flattened cardboard. I didn't sleep that night. I don't think he slept either.

In the morning as Wilson was moving around the room beyond the curtain and muttering to himself, Nux sat up and scrubbed at his eyes with his hands. I don't suppose he thought I was still awake since he jolted when I said something.

"You need a shave," I told him.

He seemed bite back what might've been a curse after a jump and a gasp, then continued scratching through his overgrown face and massaging at joints as he recovered.

"Don't think too much about that 'nymore," he murmured groggily.

"Been that long?"

"Since I flipped the war rig,"

I came up on my right elbow at that. Fucking what? "You flipped the war rig?"

"Yep," was all he said. His tone told me cola-clear that he wasn't in the mood for me to press any further about what he did do the legendary rig.

"...Wilson might be able to spare something of his to shave with. He's got sharps,"

"No grease or anything to do it with," he told me. That sucked. I could feel myself getting real prickly too.

"Can still trim it. Where's my flip-blade? I can do it." it wasn't really an urgent matter, I just wanted to see more of his face, I guess to make this feel more real. Maybe to help take the sting out of the night before too.

He looked at me funny for a second, shook his head a little and turned away. He must still be sore from getting slapped with the truth. This was what it was always like right before those blow-outs with the raging and throwing fists. He used to shut himself up and me out, then I used to be keen to whittle at him until he snapped and slugged me. Now it just seemed stupid.

Picking and prodding and jabbing buttons hardly worked on Dune, and when it did she would just leave for a spot of hunting. That had been early on when I was still nothing more than freshly barbecued road kill. I'd stopped needing that, the verbal fight, after just a few months in the caverns. I don't exactly know why I needed it in the first place.

The more I thought about now and before the road war, the more I could remember just being angry. Always angry, because anger was allowed. Everything I was let to do or feel when I lived with Dune was never permitted at home. I couldn't articulate any of this to Nux, the wall between us was built up too thick, so I said nothing. I didn't feel allowed to be anything but a War Boy around him because it's easy to fall back into old habits with the person you were with when the habits formed. I fought my urge to goad him, realizing that being a Scav is easier.

Jaw came. I recognized the voice and my guts lurched anxiously as he pulled back the curtain to look in at us. Trousers were tossed over the end of the cot, then a small bottle of water pushed at Nux.

"Wash with that," was all he said before pulling the curtain back in place.

I heard Wilson's chair squeak with protest as it took considerable weight. "You should have told me there was two of them,"

"You could have told me who the hell you were. Didn't even recognize you." Wilson grouched.

"Didn't recognize you, either. Never saw enough of your face to memorize it in the first place."

"...Do you have a vehicle? Anything? They can't stay here, I might be old and not from around here but I know the price a War Boy will fetch in this shit-hole."

"I'm not important enough to have wheels, and I wouldn't worry much. Those two... Lemme put it this way, they aren't exactly mint."

Wilson grunted with irritability on our behalf at this insult. I felt like a pup again, completely denied any part in a discussion among the apparent adults.

"...if they can work, save up enough water, they could barter for a ride out. It'll cost. No one ventures into the old Joe territories anymore without a big payoff. It's their damn civil wars."

"So it's that bad out there?"

"It's what I've heard."

Nux rose just enough to park his backside on the end of the cot and leaned in to whisper at me. "I heard that from one of the thrall captives a while back. Citadel had problems for a while, then Bullet Farm cut ties with 'em."

My guts clenched around their emptiness. Crank and the whole clan of Crow Folk drove right into that mess. I bleakly wondered if they made it, and what greeted them if they did. That reminded me, Nux had no idea Crank was alive. Tank never shredded him like we were told had happened.

"Nux, Crank is alive,"

He looked at me, eyes wide and brows risen high before furrowing together. "What do you mean?"

I swallowed hard. "Remember the bog when you an' the... The wives? Remember the bog?"

His expression crinkled under the mop and beard, I could only tell because his eyes took on that injured pup look as he no doubt relived whatever had gone on with him and the traitors that night. "Yeah, I remember."

"He's been living there for years, with the Crow Fishers."

"Why?"

"I'm not completely sure. I think the pup he took, Jackie, was from there and remembered,"

"...he used to draw all that weird stuff on shit paper," Nux muttered.

"Yeah, still does that," I informed him.

"Still doesn't explain why Crank deserted, Slit."

"It kinda does. He was looking for somewhere better."

"Without us," he hissed bitterly.

"For us I think,"

His expression softened a bit, then twisted back up into disgust. He was still all War Boy. Made sense, he was stuck somewhere rust with others of our kind ever since the road war. All that had happened in all of that time for him was learning how to survive on not enough food and the occasional beating. He was the same, only the meat on him had changed.

"How'd you find him?" He asked me.

My bloodpump pounded harder at the misery of remembering how the Nutter and I got into this mess.

"Dune was all screwed up, I thought taking her home might help. Ran into him and some of Dune's people out there." V8, it hurt to say her name.

Nux went quiet after that, fiddling with his hands in his lap. I let him be. Seemed he was through talking, so I kept listening to Wilson and Jawbreaker talk. I strained to hear anything, being half deaf. I kept thinking I was hearing Dune's name and it made my stomach churn bile and my chest hurt.

I heard a sniff at my left, just one to snort back snot, and when I looked I saw the salty drops falling out of Nux's face as he sat hunched over and shaking. He was wrecked and it had something to do with me, I was sure of it. V8, he looked like cooling shit.

New habit: I reached out like a might with Dune, but he jerked away like I'd tapped him with a cattle prod when my palm landed on his shoulder.

My guts felt like they were melting into a festering stew. Did I make him like this? Or did the slave camp do this? It couldn't have been just one or the other alone. I made him afraid, the camp stole his ability to fight back.

What the hell had I become before getting blown up?

I reached behind him for the trouser thrown in over the cot, pulled them on and had to fight with the intact pant leg to get my metal leg on with the sleeve of denim bunched up around it. I didn't look at Nux to see if he'd protest. I got up, leaned on the wall for a moment until the dizziness cleared, then pushed aside the curtain to step out, not caring much what conversation I interrupted.

"Need a rag or something to wash with, stuff for him to clean up with, too," I said, motioning very generally around my head so as not to make a big deal of him shaving again.

I just figured, he probably needed the option. Not getting that option or being forced into taking an offered "alternative" sucks and I know it.

"The old doc always looked clean shaven, there's got to be a razor or something around here. None of his stuff ever left the room, 'cept his body." Jaw explained.

Wilson didn't let me rummage for long. He made me sit where he'd been and did his own digging about the room. Jaw and I just looked each other over awkwardly. I was starting to see faint resemblance between him and Dune. Same upper lip shape, though hers were thicker, and the brows fell into the same position in his resting expression.

"Your name is Slit, huh?" he asked, bluntly opening a conversation. Wilson must have told him.

"Yep,"

He motioned side to side across his face, "because of the- nevermind." he stopped himself as I glared.

"...almost thought you were gonna ask if I had another name before I got so drop-dead gorgeous," I grinned sarcastically, though the gesture was halfhearted.

"Actually, I was," he snorted.

"That was the first thing she asked, too,"

Silence for a moment. This was torturous. Thank V8 he steered the conversation toward something else, the thing I'd overheard about working our way out of here.

"What skills do you and Nux have?"

"Cars, explosives, Nux can solder some electrical shit, too." I offered hopefully.

He grumbled, "not much work around here for any of that. You'd need vetted for any mechanic work, and that brand on you means you aren't allowed anywhere near my boss's garages.

"I'll keep an ear open for anything that might get you boys more cola and rations. For now, only job I can promise has you workin' the fighter barracks with a broom in your hand."

I clenched my teeth and shut my eyes as he finished telling me we only had one option, menial labor. I had this creeping suspicion that we might not ever get out of here. If Flick was here and had never been able to leave, we were fucked. The way Dune lauded her brothers in praise for smarts and being creative enough to survive in the Green Place where they were always under suspicion and at times the target of outright hate from 90% of the population, I expected- well, I expected better than a burnt-out ring fighter who'd abandoned his name.

Wilson nudged me with an elbow, "found it, I think."

He was wiping on his shirt a greasy old eating knife sharpened so many times that the blade had been worn back to half its original width. There was a jar in his other hand. Thick black hairs clung around the lid. Gross, but better than nothing. I looked to the curtained off cot. I could hear the springs creaking slightly as Nux moved. If I listened carefully, I thought I heard sniffling too.

Jaw Stood, "I have work to do. Expect patients tonight. We're beginning eliminations for this year's House Wars."

Wilson shrugged, "I gather I'll find out what that means based on the disfigurements the poor bastards crawl in here with."

Jawbreaker shrugged back, but knowingly. He dropped a wrapped bundle on the table as he left the room. Wilson opened it and sighed.

"...I really didn't want to start appreciating that prick," he growled as he looked down at three forearm length, dirt colored things that looked like thin bricks. They had seams on the sides and dimples from kneading fingertips as if they were pressed in moulds. Rations. People Kibble.

Wilson passed two toward me. "Give him his, will ya?"

I paused, watching the curtain and hearing that all movement behind it had stopped. I passed one of the two bars back, shaking my head.

Wilson's brows lowered as he mouthed a few words silently. He alright?

I shook my head and turned up a palm. Don't think so.

Wilson rumbled a single "huh-mm," before taking the stained cloth the ration bars had been wrapped in, folded the third bar, the blade, and the grease jar into it, then shuffled toward the cot to pass the bundle behind the curtain.

Wilson and I ate in silence for a while. The stuff was hard and brittle, it hurt my broken teeth to chew, but I was too hungry not to force it down.

"We'll pull those once your a little further outta the woo- er. When you get some zip back in ya," he promised. I just nodded. I didn't have it in me to care much and nothing in me looked forward to that. "Nux needs a few out too, but that's from a soft diet for too long, I think. I'm no dentist. Clearly I'm no good with teeth."

I tuned him out. He eventually left me alone to sit there at his desk, head rested on my right arm with my left curled close because it ached. I didn't want to bother Nux right now. I didn't know what he needed and probably didn't have what he needed either.

I fell into the worst half-sleep. My face was sticking to the desk when the sound of shouting and pained yowls woke me. Wilson had patients, just like Jawbreaker promised. Seven men and three women crowded around clutching bleeders, Wilson zooming about, snapping at some to keep pressure on, forcing the ones who've already been treated to help him deal with the others.

A few minutes of trying to sort everything I saw and heard, I learned that some absolute glorious nut-job did in everyone here in the arena. Some bloke called Lighty Boy, who'd now won himself a spot on a team which carries out a higher form of combat. Those House Wars Jaw mentioned, I guess.

I couldn't process all of the noise for too long. It ground against the gears of my senses. I left the room, limping out and choosing to sit in the hall instead. I could still hear everything, but it wasn't unbearable. I slowly started sliding back into sleep, sitting up against the wall. My neck would ache later, but it was better than the howling of wrecked fighters and the way it felt to sit too close to Nux in the state he was in.

Time passed. Only a few of Wilson's patients left the room in that short period while I slipped in and out of foul dreams. I was nudged awake with sharp, thin knuckles.

"Slit?" It was Nux. He had one of the unused oil lamps from the office lit in his hand and had sat himself down beside me. The bottle of water, the shaving shit, and the cloth now damp and coated in filth sat over his crossed legs. He wore no shirt, he was just bones and irregular tan lines. He'd scrubbed himself, but dark lines of dirt still stuck in the ridges of the engine seared into his chest.

He wouldn't look at me, but pulled on the long tangles of hair sprouting from his chin, "I- I don't even know where to start."

His fists clenched in the mattes all around his skull and his shoulders shivered while he tried not to heave and sob. All I could think about was the fact that Dune let me do this, be a wreck. She never punished me or declared me rust for it once I couldn't lock it up anymore. I didn't feel like myself when I spoke up, but it didn't feel wrong to be someone else for a minute.

"It's, uh, it's okay. It's a lot of- er, hair. It's a lot of hair." I said, knowing this wasn't about hair and hoping he knew that too.

He nodded, but cringed out a few sobs and yanked on his hair some more. It hurt to see this, It looked wrong, what little of me that was still War Boy railed against the majority that had gone Scavenger. It's a gut reaction to shun Boys who act like this, because the soft become crow food wicked fast.

I took the knife from his lap and he jerked away but I didn't chase him with it to try taking the tangles off by force, like I know I'd have done years ago. I let him come to me. It was slow, and he still gripped clumps of hair in his fists as he leaned closer.

My hands shook and my elbow hated me for this, but I started taking whatever chunks of hair he wasn't holding onto and sheering them away with the blade. He didn't flinch again, and the blade was good and sharp, so I hardly had to pull at all. It got easier to clear the hair as he let go, but the act itself got harder.

He still choked on his sobs, his cola-works flooding down his face lubricated the blade just as much as the grease from the jar did as I began to truly shave him. He was hardly more than a skull and skin. A mask of sun abused hide circled his eyes and sharp cheek bones. I hadn't started on his head beyond cutting out the matted knots, and I was afraid to. I didn't want to see how he'd have lost even the thin muscle across his temples. I could feel with my fingers they had withered and sunken in to cling deathly close to his skull. His teeth were chattering.

"M'cold," he breathed.

"...yeah... Uh... Dune says, hair on top keeps you from cooking but keeps you warm? Maybe we'll just... Uh. Leave it."

He nodded again, this time he looked me in the eye, and he wasn't whimpering so much.

"Don't wanna go back in there 'til they all go," he said, and I nodded in agreement.

So we sat, both idly watching that pile of grungy hair as if we expected it to get up and walk off on It's own. He still trembled and chattered his ivory.

"...hm, you'd be warmer if you were over here," I was just repeating shit I'd said to Dune weeks ago. It was easier than a fight, or being miserable.

Nux took a second to decide as I watched him, but scooted closer and balled himself up against my ribs.

It -finally- fully registered that Nux wasn't dead. I had to cover my mouth in my right hand while the left arm stayed rested over my driver as he started to snore. I didn't sob or bawl or even whimper, I didn't have enough guzz in me to spare that kind of energy and I didn't want to wake him, but I'd look like both my eyes were busted by morning.


	16. Maintenance

**-Slit-**

I dreamt of the caverns every night, of waking up to the sound of the scavenger singing to herself as she started her day and washed her face. I wondered if I wasn't capable of waking up any way but disappointed.

When I lived with Dune, I used to dream about waking up in the Citadel barracks next to my driver, and then I'd find myself in the caves again and feel like crap all day. Now I didn't wake up at either place. Nux was here with me, but things between us were different, harder, but quieter.

It took a month before I could stand up without my trashed flesh suit protesting it. My left arm still hung in a sling because for some reason that would take more time than anything else to right itself. We found a dentist who pulled shards of tooth out of my gums when Wilson botched up the yanking of my two broken teeth. Nux had gotten back into the habit of shaving his own face but still kept the hair on his head. I'd grown mine back too and hardly bothered with my face. No point in sheering it off if I wasn't headed to the Citadel any time soon. It was just one less way to aggravate my elbow.

I counted days, scratched tallies on the leg of the desk we slept next to with the tip of my wrist blade. It had been thirty eight days, counting the time I spent laying there unconscious. Nux had been doing janitorial work for twenty seven of those days, I'd joined him in it about a week prior. I woke up every morning to Nux slapping me awake with the rolled up wad of discarded cloth he used as a pillow.

"We're gonna get there late an' somebody's gonna steal our job!" He urged.

He always said something similar and he always seemed to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn, ready to work. He woke up earlier than me before, at home, but never to this degree. I tried rolling over but he'd just swat harder and confiscate the thin sheet we used to cover up at night. He was standing over me, just swinging away with his wad of pillow at my shoulders and uglier end until I sat up and slung my own at his face. He tossed it back.

"I'm UP... Can't just let me finish up a dream, tosser,"

"You dream of rusty nails and dust, rot-head,"

"Says you, pervert scum bucket who dreams about tailpipes,"

"Better than you, feral fucker,"

He didn't mean it the way it sounds like he meant it. Feral Fucker was a common War Boy jest, nothing but a good natured insult but, it hits you different if you've spent any real time with anyone who's anything close to feral. I said nothing, but I know my expression twisted.

Nux didn't really know how far things went between Dune and I, but he had been told enough about Dune in the night while we were supposed to be sleeping to know what she was like. He realized what he'd said, what he'd insinuated -perversely but not incorrectly- and after a second or two his playful grin dropped and became a cringe.

"Sorry, um, I forgot," He murmured as he pulled his belt through the loops and tightened it. He still hadn't gained enough weight to use belt holes he hadn't had to poke through himself.

I shrugged, pulling my trouser leg up to wipe off night sweat, check for dry spots and to see how the friction sores were healing, too. It didn't ache any less when Dune was brought up. If anything the pain of knowing where she was and what she was being forced to do only raged louder in my head every day. Nux seemed to sense how impossible it was to talk about it and hardly asked about her anymore. He knew enough. He knew she shoveled my sorry skin out of a wreck, that she taught me how to farm maggots, that we got close, I guess, and that's all I could figure out how to tell him outside the random things about Scav Country. The War Boy in me was afraid to admit to him how soft I got with the scavenger. All he had to know was that I couldn't talk about her, not with him and not right now.

I knew he was afraid too, of telling me what went on when he was with the wives and Furiosa. I knew because he avoided the topic and It was fine for now because I wasn't ready to hear of it.

We dressed quietly but quickly. Nux wasn't lying that someone might steal our job. We got assigned a section of halls or barracks or both to sweep for garbage each morning, but if you're late to the barracks to pick up your equipment, they might hand your stuff off to anyone who shows up.

Wilson wasn't even awake yet when we gathered the last few crumbs of the previous night's rations into our pockets and left the room to hurry to the surface and into the narrow halls of the submarine. We were headed toward the locked entrance of the rooms used for storage.

There was already a line forming as we arrived. We were the fifth and sixth to show up and wait. Most of the cleaners sat in the corridor and ate whatever they'd brought to fuel up for work, Nux and I did the same. Crumbles of compressed ration stuffed into a square of moldy tack like a sandwich. We each took a bite and that's about all we'd probably get to eat until noon. The man ahead of us had nothing to eat, instead he rolled up something in a torn corner of an old magazine page and began to smoke it. It smelled foul, we had to fan off the smoke before it gave Nux a coughing fit.

Most places in the sub were lit with flickering strings of colored lights or a bulb or two but they were always few and far between. Most folks, if they could afford anything to burn, walked around with their own light source. Nux and I didn't need that. We were already well accustomed to dim and narrow tunnels, and the pitch of a black tunnel was no worse than the caverns for me.

The first glow of dawn light could not be seen so deep in the dead ship, but was signaled through the settlement by someone near the square who played old world tunes and announced news over a sprawling sound system. When we heard that noise start up, it would signal that the door would open soon and they'd start calling work numbers.

Everyone who worked official like for this house had a work number. Mine was 117, Nux was 118. If you're a worker with a number, you have your own work equipment that has to be turned back in every evening before sundown. If you don't show up for a few days, they give your number and your equipment to somebody else. If you never turn in your equipment at night, you get "fired" which by the way does not involve being lit on fire. They just blacklist you and you can't work for them anymore. Anyway, our numbers just guarantee that there's always work for us if we show up on time.

The man who came out every morning to start calling workers in was the same enforcer who'd hauled me around the day I met Jawbreaker. This takes time. Dozens were queued up behind us. Slowly workers were called in and shuffled past him. More guards would appear as he came closer to the end of his list. Sometimes the unemployed begged and started trying to push through the door, and if you're at the back and get your number called, you might have your ass handed to you by somebody who wants your work. That's why you get here before dawn. I hated being conscious this early, but I'd rather get harassed awake by Nux at The Crack than be at the back during the calls.

Our numbers were up, so we showed him the little metal tags -flattened bottle caps- with the digits press-stamped into them and we filed in. Our stuff was all in a room down the hall, a bunch of trash bins with wheels bolted on. The bins were corraled together and stacked up. Our numbers were painted in bold white letters against the dented aluminum. We found our cans and checked inside them to make sure the brooms, rags, and dust pans weren't missing, and we wasted no more time.

We rushed to get to our section of hallways. Nux would bump my can with his own to hurry me. I bumped back or stopped short. We'd still get there in plenty of time. These halls were claustrophobic, my leg would catch on any pipework or I'd clip a door knob with a hip trying to hobble too fast. I always tried to be in front of Nux, because otherwise I'd always be rushing to catch up with him.

We split off as we reached our sections. I had two hallways and he had two of his own. It sounds like a simple chore, one you could do in just a few minutes, but it was dark and there were always obstacles. Shit people dropped, never ending piles of trash to pick up and stuff down into the can. That was just how it was done, apparently. People were always just dropping their garbage through these dark passages.

It's easiest to just push the wide broom along and build up a good pile at the nearest light source, in this case a rust-rotten hole through two upper levels to serve as a sky light. Under the faint light I could then shovel the shit up with the dust pan. I had one yellow glove full of holes to half-blindly pick up the mess that kept falling out of the pan before I could dump it into the can.

You never know what nasty shit someone might've left, assuming it'd get picked up eventually by workers. Every day so far was another section of this sub or one of the tunnel roads down below, and I was always amazed at how much rubbish could accumulate so quickly. According to a few of the old timers, it wasn't always so bad, but people started to figure it didn't matter where the trash ended up because a cleaner would eventually get assigned to a hall once it was almost impossible to walk through without stepping in human shit or broken glass.

One of the first things we had to get with our wages was shoes. The cheap wretch sandals made of yet more trash wouldn't do. We had to pay cola out the nose for work boots. You better have closed toed shoes, or you'd regret it after a while. Every drop Nux saved and everything I made the first week I worked went toward that. We were at square one again, getting dried out trying to save sips of aqua-cola.

Nux finished both of his assigned halls before I finished my first. I was slower than him but didn't used to be. It was the leg and it was the meat on me still struggling to fix itself. I swear, I used to heal up from a beating like this in a week or two, tops. Wilson told me once when I complained that it is the joy of aging and to give it time. You're made of fresh rubber until you're twenty-five years old, after that, the rubber starts to dry-rot. Nux was a handful of years younger than me, even as underweight as he was, he still had more guzz than I did. He helped me finish my job, and it stung, but he didn't berate me for it.

Things weren't the same, things were reversed, and it shows that I'm a shit. Nux was worried I was so beat up that I'd never be right again, even asked Wilson if it could be lumps hiding in me somewhere making me slow at healing up and slow at work, and slow at damn near everything else. Give him time, Wilson would say. Organic told me once to spend time wisely because Larry and Barry were going to kill Nux. I didn't help Nux then the way he now helped me, I used to scorn him for his failure to thrive and stand up proper to be a warrior. Time won't heal that.

We finished my work together and the cans were heavy now. At least this was the part where I was useful. We would put both cans ahead of us in the narrow passages and I was heavy enough to lean into them and just walk the trash on wheels out to where we could dump it.

All trash gets dumped outside what they called Fur-No. It was supposedly the room where this water rig's engines used to be. Wilson said engines big as a house, and you bet Nux salivated at the very concept, but all of that was now gone, scaved and melted down long before our time for the steel. Now it was the place they burned trash to heat the place through winter. The piles outside it were at the ceiling, men shoveled it through the doorway, the destitute plucked through the detritus in search of anything valuable.

Nux and I struggled one can at a time, lifting at either side to dump the dreck. The cans always had a sour stench. We left and tried to move as quickly as we could to our secondary assignment. Slave fighter barracks.

Fighter barracks is a different animal to tangle with. There were bodies sometimes, fighters who refused to be taken to The Blues for a patch job and die in the night. Buckets of literal shit because their latrines were just a room full of repulsive privacy curtains stained where people had wiped their asses with them, and grimy toilet seats nailed on over wooden chairs with holes bored through the seats. Latrines at the Citadel weren't any better, but I never had to clean them.

The reason we tried to get our first job done quickly was because fighters trained in the proving grounds on a tight schedule. Fighters owned by the house trained in the early morning a little while after we start working, and come back to their living spaces around mid-morning so that employed but otherwise free fighters could use the proving grounds until noon. We didn't want to be in the barracks when they were still there or when they came back. To say it wasn't safe to be there while it was occupied is an understatement.

I always wondered where literal hundreds of the Scrotus War Boy horde went after their Warlord and master carked it. Some obviously clung to their faith and took over The Canyon from Rock Riders much later somehow. A few dozen were absorbed by Bullet Farm and the Citadel, and those who'd been stationed in the dumps around Gas Town stayed where they'd always been, but that only accounted for a small percentage. I always assumed they'd just dissolved into deserting scum. Nope, shrewd cunts like Scrud had rounded up Scrotus boys by the dozens, straight up disappeared them as they scrambled around confused after the death of Scrabrous Scrotus. Then they were sold here to the four ever warring Shatter Houses. Carnage Fodder.

They generally don't show up at Wilson's office either, because they go for it so damn hard in the arenas that they either come out victorious or dead. The wounded typically refused to get patched as well, and it wasn't hard to guess why. No War Boy enjoys being mediocre enough to constantly need that kind of intervention to survive. So, those who were still breathing by this point were nothing but the absolute strongest of our kind, built out of disfigurements from raging infections that had healed over and a lust for recognition from their new "daddy". His name was Chuck, The top man of this house which employed Nux and I. Wilson called him Caligula, though I don't know what that meant.

Nux shoved his trash bin against mine anxiously. "C'mon, c'mon! We're cuttin' it too close!"

"I know, I KNOW!" I snapped back, anxious too.

I could only move so fast now-days in a narrow passage. I couldn't swing the metal leg forward to run in here without wanging it on the wall over and over and beating the shit out of my stump in the process.

I knew why he was buzzing like mad to get there and get done. He'd already been cornered in there once before and had to be saved. Praise V8 that scrotus Boys weren't the only War Boys who'd ended up here. A handful were our own, Citadel Boys. They coexist with the Scrotus Boys, kind of, and one of them had called out for the barracks guards to come get my former driver out the day he got grabbed and tossed around for fun.

Nux hadn't gotten much more than a few very ugly bruises but if he'd been in there any longer, V8 knows what they might've done to him. The one who saved his ass was named Sprockets. I still owed him for looking out for Nux before I could come along to work with him, but I had no idea what I could do to return the favor.

We passed a tiny window, one machined through the wall and hull, and Nux pressed close to it as we passed to glimpse how high the sun had risen and wager a guess at how much time was left for us to do our job.

"Two hours maybe, I'll do the shit buckets, you start the bunks," he declared, claiming the task neither of us wanted, but with both arms in working order, he'd be quicker about it than I would.

"Just pray there isn't a corpse in there, 'cause the arm isn't gonna have it," I couldn't lift worth a shit, and I couldn't help but scorn myself internally. My heart pounded miserably at a thought, that Dune would be reminding me that I shouldn't expect myself to be made of steel. She used to scold me for trying to do too much when my leg was still healing.

I had to put away the thought, we'd arrived. The way in was guarded, but our bins and brooms granted us access without question. The reinforced door came open and we were allowed in after a quick search of our pockets for shivs or banned things we might leave behind for fighters we may know. The smell hits you first. Sweat, the funk that tells of unwashed bodies being recently present, stale foot odor from discarded socks. Actually, smells a bit like any crew's kip back home, only more potent because no one around here bathed much.

We split off again. Nux would be running the shit buckets to and from where we were to dump it. There was a chute system to pour it down. I'm unsure where all the excrement went, but I was told it had to do with producing power. The locals called it Fart Sparks. I had absolutely no idea what turning shit to power entailed, but I knew nothing went to waste around here. Nothing.

My job began in the living spaces. I started with the cots, dragging them off their narrow shelves in the walls and dumping them all into the center of the rooms. You have to flip them, too, to check for knives or weapons. Any food left behind, you pocket that. They weren't supposed to leave food lying around because of the rat infestation. Rats make fine tucker when farmed but the wild ones are harbingers of pestilence. Debris and dust is swept up, everyone's shit is left in the piles in the middle of the rooms to sort out themselves when they returned.

The point of this was more to remove anything they weren't supposed to have and to make sure that the place stayed just the least bit better than squalid.

My bin hardly had anything in it by the time I was nearly done because they had little to make a mess with. Again, Nux came to help me before I was through with the third room.

"All guzz pedal," I muttered as he made me useless without meaning to, running circles around me as he flipped the last few cots in the room and quickly scattered belongings to check them.

He sighed and glanced at me. His eyes were drawn to my metal leg. It made me cringe.

"You'll get better," He lied to the both of us.

This leg wasn't about to grow back like a lizard tail. The arm might eventually heal up and the scab on my foot might fall off soon, but I was never going to go back to being what I used to be.

Switch around everything and go in reverse until we were back home three years ago, I would've discarded him if he'd dropped a leg. He'd be left to die whenever he lost it. It wasn't just the fact that the practice of leaving behind the maimed was a part of War Boy life, it was the fact that I'd grown so wrapped up in being worthy, better than anyone, that Nux had become not my brother and littermate but a means to an end. A tool. Just my driver. A part which was wearing out fast.

I almost bit the end of my tongue off as I thought about it. I thought about this almost every day, and it now drove me just as close to a fit as the thought of Dune did. I definitely should have waited until we were done here before opening the valve on my bullshit as the pressure built up, but my mouth was already open.

"Nux," I called his attention and waited till he looked up from what he was doing, his eyes still looked through rather than at me because he was most concerned with getting done in here very quickly, "you deserved better."

I couldn't believe what I'd said, well, I sort of believed it. I had already figured out up in my rusted skull that Dune had deserved better. Why not Nux?

His mouth opened and closed, eyes bulging in the present again instead of narrowed and thinking about what was in the looming near-future. He appeared to swallow air for another moment before looking away to glare at the pile of mattresses with his jaw clenched and brows pinched together.

"You're right, I did." He grit out through his teeth.

Truth literally hurts, I felt pain across my skull and the back of my neck at his agreement. So, I turned away and reached for the last plastic woven basket of crap to overturn and sift through with my metal foot. I couldn't look at him. I don't know for sure but I don't think he could look at me either. I heard sniffling, something that had stopped since he had me shave his face for him almost a month ago. Great, I just had to keep jabbing open the wound and making us both rust, didn't I?

We hardly brought up home anymore, and we never talked about how things were between us before the road war. There are too many moments for us that are beyond finding words for, good, bad, euphoric, horrid all jumbled together and buried under it all was Joe. The very worst of it was trying to figure if it was the lies Joe wove into us though the cult or something in my very blueprints that made me monstrous.

We moved on through the rest of the rooms, turning everything upside-down and inside-out in silence. We left the barracks just in time. Had to press into the wall just outside the entrance and behind one of the guards as they moved single file through the doorway. Didn't particularly want to be in their way.

I've never seen them up close like this as we were usually out of their way in plenty of time. First Scrotus Boys, you could always tell who was from what branch of the faction by the scars, then random men from all corners of the wastes in their own little groups, then Citadel Boys. I recognized no one out of the line, too much hair and no paint. As they kept passing, I felt the pressure of a body pressing into the side of me that was mostly scars, then arms winding around, then hairy skull grinding on leathery skull. I'd gone rigid, not really sure what to do. Now that line seemed to go on and on forever while Nux was trying to crush his own bones to dust against me.

Alright, okay, he's panicking or something, I thought. He was hanging on me like he had when we were pups. It took a minute to beat back the War Boy way of being. Be a scavenger instead, it's not that damn hard, just grip him back. So, yeah, he got the crush of arms back. Had to pull my arm out of the sling to do it, and it twinged, but I held him back. Still felt like I was breaking code to do it.

The fighters were long gone and he was still stuck on me as the guards were staring.

"...Hey. Hey, they're gone. We can go now," I tried, shuffling away from the barracks entrance and back to our bins but he was locked up around me while the guards started muttering to each other.

"S'not them- that, whatever-" He mumbled as he only partially detached himself from me.

He was acting like he was thousands of days younger than he really was. For some reason my brain reminded me of those dreams I had months ago where Nux was a pup again. I wondered if- oh, maybe it had to do with... Oh. What I'd said in there.

Alright. I let him cling. It was okay. It felt so awkward that I had to force my acceptance of it and some part of my head urged me to get away from the door guards, and their authority, as quickly as possible. Once we rounded the corner back into dark hallway, my throat felt tight and I found myself just pushing the bins along clumsily with my mass while my good arm reached around behind me to grasp at Nux wherever I could, only finding his side. I felt like a pup too young for a branding iron and paint.

I stopped, so did Nux but only after he walked into me and his forehead collided with my cranium. I meant to pull him around front and hold him in the darkness of the unlit hallway, the way you're supposed to do with a brother, so you don't have to admit it ever happened.

"Ow, Slit! What're you doin?!" he whined.

I tried to turn and reach out but we just fumbled and knocked heads again before I could get ahold if him properly.

My guts twisted, because I wasn't supposed to be this damn soft. My throat tightened up worse than before and I bit my tongue to hold back whatever was boiling over in that pool of tar in the pit of my spirit. Nux had it all wrong, I didn't just die and get reincarnated from the body as a driver/passenger friendly model. Dune disassembled me down to a thousand pieces and put the parts back together. I was overhauled, so that meant the raging car-fire Nux grew up with never died to be absolved of the shit I put him through. I remembered all of it, and all of it was rust. You could have a healthier relationship with fume than you could with me as I was back then. All of this was true, I was sure of it, and nearly crushed the boney bastard where we stood, but we're still War Boys, and I couldn't hold him and try to start making up for all I'd done in the brutal light.

He went stiff as a corpse. I thought I stomped my way over that thick, canyon sized line that got drawn somewhere between when we woke up the day Furiosa went rogue and when Nux joined her. Bloodpump did a fearful leap, then another. I was horrified of this abstract idea that not only was Nux simply not my driver anymore, but some supreme force would punish us for acting this way.

I let go and he didn't stop me. We just stood there in the dark, in what might as well have been an endless void, apart and doing nothing. My head spun, probably because the bloodpump was still hammering away and it seemed like reality had crumbled.

Now I was the one snorting back snot and wiping my face on my sleeve. This is pup shit. We were too damn old for this and too sore at each other for it too, at least I thought so until he shoved at me, but not hard the way you do when you're trying to get a real fight out of someone. It was loose limbs and leaning with all of his gawky self.

"You soft, shit," he said through a restrained sob, shoving again.

It took me no time. I remembered this. Not more than a minute later Nux was laughing insults at me while I had him in a headlock.

"Soft as a nice wet milker! Hah! Hey! Ngh!"

"I'm too soft? You're the one who looks like what gets shaved off licey bloodba- Ow!"

He was maneuvering his leg behind my metal one and pushing back with his elbow against my sternum. He almost had himself out, but he was straining with everything he had and so was I. It wasn't chrome, we were both rusted out so bad we were at a pathetic and un-epic stalemate of mutual fragility.

The sensation which came over me was freakish. It was like nothing and everything had changed at the same time. It excited my skull meat and bloodpump in a dim kind of euphoria. I laughed too, and that just made Nux laugh harder. He laughed so hard that it was hard to tell if he was still laughing or had broken down into sobbing.

It had to end. We were separated when someone, the guards leaving for shift change, needed to use the walkway. We still looked at each other somewhat awkwardly in the light when we emerged on the other side, but it wasn't so bad as it had been. What had happened, pup level soft bullshit really, changed things again.

I don't hate change, I'm just chicken-shit afraid of it. I didn't want things to go back to the way they were and become monstrous again. Can't let it get that way again.

We still had trash cans and work to hurry for before someone else took it on first. There's something more immediate to think about than the vague perception of horrifying change.

Usually we didn't go back to Wilson's right away, we took the bins out with us to the parts of the shanty town where a lot of the free fighters lived so we could knock on shacks and offer to pick up trash and sweep out dust for a little food or a sip of aqua-cola.

It didn't seem like something either of us wanted to do today. Nux was still shaky, I was sore already and tired in a way that was mostly from the neck up. I was hemorrhaging commitment to the idea of extra work.

"...Think we can do without the side stuff?" I huffed, still catching my breath. He'd know what I meant.

"No, but- yeah, I just want to go scrub down and be done," he admitted shamefully.

We finished up, turned in our trash cans and collected our pay for the day. A carefully measured quart of cola each for the cleaned corridors, and the barracks searches and sweeping got us some stale hard tack. I don't think the tack was made within Shatterbone, it was too old, usually just beginning to grow green spots. It was probably traded here from the northern territories where we came from, which made it a luxury here because you need water to bake anything.

No one liked cleaning the barracks, thanks to the risks it involved, so the turnover rate of cleaners assigned to it was rapid. Jaw set us up so that we'd gotten that job most mornings and the extra food for it but to this day I'm unsure if I should be thankful or hazard a swing at him over it.

The best that could be done to clean up was going to the surface for a scrub down in the road dust. You just had to be careful. Dirt with any wet about it meant somebody had just pissed there, and up top you constantly have to watch out for piles of shit. Around here, the wretch folk drop trow pretty much wherever the urge hits them.

We found somewhere in an alley between the shanties and scoured the filth off the best we could in the salty earth. Nux and I had taken on the look of the working class without meaning to. It was just necessity to keep clean somehow, so we'd turned a crusty grey and brown with the stuff of the seabed. People here were color coded. The grey crust for workers, soot black for slaver auctioneers, ash on the noses and shoulders of merchants, blue dye for doctors, red ochre for enforcers of law, and true flesh tones for fighters.

We started on our way back to Wilson, but Nux pulled on my good arm to stop us.

"Hear that?" he said.

I turned my head left and right to try hearing anything but pedestrian jawing all around us and garbled business transactions happening.

Nux broke away and moved toward one of the shack homes, So I followed. Just a few steps closer and I could hear the slap-n-crack of flesh striking flesh, bare knuckles rapping skull again and again like a drum. We didn't dare pull back the scraps of cloth covering the doorway. We had to peek in through a loose seam in the corner of the rubbish built kip.

It was dark, my good eye had to adjust, but there was movement, a circle of wretch folk cheering, shrieking and booing, a big jug of cola passed round and round for them to dribble drops from their personal bottles into it, and in the center of it all, two men beating the nuts and bolts out of each other.

Took a minute to process since the winnings looked different than what I was accustomed to, but what we were looking at was gambling.

I could feel a shitty idea on its way.


	17. Am I Ever Going To Change

**-Slit-**

ONE

Ol' Cack was what they called him because he stunk like old cack. He was whooping and pounding his chest, just hamming it up to the crowd while I lay there face down in what could also possibly be old cack.

TWO

This wasn't going at all how I thought it would. Cack was a wretch, skinny, dried out, not that intimidating, right? Wrong. I didn't know the rules of this shack fighting bullshit. I knew fighting in the pits back home: no weapons and no pants because you can hide a weapon in your pants, and then you beat each other until somebody either gives up or can't fuckin' walk anymore. That wasn't how it was 'round the Shatterbone shacks. Down there, anything goes.

THREE

If Ol' Cack had a knife instead of a chair, I'd probably be laying on the ground bleeding out. All I had to be thankful for was that I'd had the good sense not to take off my pants for this.

FOUR

It wasn't like they were the real fighters, they were just the locals, and I was a War Boy. This should have been a sure thing!

FIVE

I could hear counting. Nux and I had watched long enough to know what that meant. If I didn't get up before the crowd counted to ten, that meant I was out. Done. The big loser.

SIX

Around me, I heard taunts from the other spectators, mostly about my face. Slizard was what the man organizing this decided to call me, which meant everyone was calling me that. Nux, at least, was still bellowing my name and slapping his palm against the boards encircling the ring, but his voice cut off abruptly as if somebody had physically put an end to his cheering for me off the floor.

SEVEN

I looked up toward where Nux had been among the spectators, expecting to see him being accosted by the wretched surrounding us. What I saw wasn't a wretch man-handling him, but invoked a rage that had festered like an infection under my scars for years. Bloodbag. The feral was pulling on Nux's sleeve, almost like he was trying to pull him away from the ring and abduct him, again.

EIGHT

The threat of losing wasn't what I needed to get back on my feet, apparently having violent flashbacks of a driver stealing one booted raging feral was. Cack looked surprised to see that I'd risen, as he should, he had wanged me pretty damn well with that old fold-out chair and looked to be moving in for another swing with it.

Rage makes you hard as steel. I was clapped over the left shoulder and the side of the head with the chair, and would feel that later on, but caught it around the edge of the backrest in my right, stronger hand. I have no idea what I did with the chair after I wrenched it from Cack's grip, or what happened to Cack for all that matter. It was just a blur of motion and anger from deep in my gut.

The people watching were roaring like a crowd twice the size, and I tasted blood, though I was uncertain why. I saw stars, vision funneled to focus directly on Bloodbag and nothing else as I dove over the wooden boards and scrap panels composing the ring. I was after the driver thief. I'd gone kamicrazy! Or Scav-frenzied? I didn't know or care which as I gripped the lapels of the bloodbag's jacket and began to drag him into the ring.

"Slit! No!" Nux screeched, pulling his bloodbag back with a grip around the back waistband of his pants with a foot braced against the outer wall of the ring. "Mate! Stop! Let go!"

Bloodbag shrieked, arms flailing, then finding purpose in trying to tear himself away, pushing against my shoulders as I snapped my teeth. I was going to rip his fucking jugular out for putting hands on Nux, for trying to take him away again!

ONE

They're counting again, why?

TWO

Bloodbag began pounding his fists against my head, but with the kamicrazy burning through me and without enough space to gain any real momentum with his swings, my grip hardly loosened. I didn't bite down on him around the blood gusher like I'd been aiming to, because he was wiggling around while Nux and I played tug-o-war with him. I got him at the bend of the elbow. Whatever, I'll take a chunk out where ever I could.

THREE

There was more force behind the action to pull Bloodbag back and out of my reach than there should be. Almost lost him once, but managed to keep dug in and got pulled out over the short walls of the ring with him. The spectators were trying to pull him back too.

FOUR

"FERAL FILTH! INFECTED 'IM WITH YOUR CRAZY BLOOD! YOU'RE WHY HE DIED," Nux wasn't dead and I knew this, I think I was half in today and half in last year.

FIVE

"HOLY MC'FUCKIN' V8, LET GO SLIT!" Nux roared.

SIX

Something crashed against the back of my good and metal leg, the surge of imagined flames licking up my stump jerked me out of the frenzy. I collapsed backward into a set of arms. They were thicker and stronger than any wretch, folding my own arms forward and pinning them to my chest in an inescapable squeeze.

The counting had stopped. Everyone was shouting, darting about as faces painted in red poured inside through the narrow doorway.

I twisted, trying to see behind me and up... And up... And up. Goofy ears and a blond stubbled chin. Jawbreaker.

Nux was fuming. He wouldn't look at me. I suppose this was sort of my fault since I said I could do it and win us buckets of cola, but he backed me up on it! Now he was over there, sitting between me and his bloodbag, as if he could in any way act as a shield if I decided to dive onto the feral-fuck and try beating the eyes from his skull. I just might, if he moves wrong or looks at Nux for too long. Bloodbag knew better. He kept his eyes fixed to the wall beyond the bars of the cramped cell we sat in.

Every once in a while I'd hear him mumble something unintelligible, and I'd also hear Nux grumble words that were perfectly intelligible.

"...tosser," he cursed.

"Aw, come the fuck off it, won, didn't I?" I retorted.

"Ohh, but I don't see any winnings, do you? Because you only got it up and knocked off Cack because he was in your way of killin' my mate here, and got us all ARRESTED!"

I was going to say something snappy, already had something slick in the tank to slap back with, but that word stopped me. Mate. Ugh, that was... Painful. The bloodbag is a mate of his?

I choked on the words I forgot, then chewed on the end of my tongue to hold back something worse. I forgot how easy it was to fight with Nux, how the reaction to his, honestly rightful, anger was to sling around more shit.

If I hadn't thrown a fit when I saw Bloodbag, nobody would have gotten the guards to keep me from tearing the Feral's head off. Apparently, shack fights are prohibited, but the rule isn't enforced unless you gave the guards a reason to bother, like say: attempting to corpse a prizefighter hired to one of the top clans.

Nux was right, I made the mess, but it was within my right to tell him why.

"I thought he was gonna steal you again!" I admitted after a moment, spitting over Nux's shoulder at the hairy shit.

Blood-sack flinched and cursed his weirdo speak. That got me slapped across the back of the head by my former driver, but it wasn't like Dune's slaps. Dune's slaps and pinches weren't meant to do any harm, they were just a warning that I was pushing my luck. When a War Boy slaps another War Boy, we aim to take off a layer of skin and leave bruises. Dune's warning slap was soft by comparison, almost playful, Nux's almost got him laid the hell out on reflex.

What stopped me was the sight of him shrinking back into Bloodbag as I lurched at him with a fist clenched and ready. It wasn't what I wanted, I didn't want him on the floor and bleeding, I didn't like seeing him jerk away like that with the expectation to experience my fist in his face or ribs. He knew the feeling of my blows well, and I knew the flare of rage boiling in my guts even better, but it went cold as frost quickly.

Fuck, this wasn't what I wanted anymore. The fight, his waterworks, and the carving that would follow to handle my anger and hurt, the thought of living that nightmare again sickened me as I pulled back and scooted on my palms and right heel to put some distance between us.

Now I was the one who couldn't look at him. I realized then that the feral wasn't to blame, Nux was never stolen, he ran away. I didn't blame him, I'd run from me too.

"This is why I didn't tell you he was here," I heard him grind out between pitiful sniffs.

"What?" I bit my tongue at my anger, but meant what I asked all the same.

Nux crossed his arms, scooting himself closer to his bloodbag mate.

"Knew you'd blow your head gasket and go kamicrazy on 'im. O'course you would. You'd feckin' corpse 'im even though he's our only real shot outta this rust pit, half the chance! 'Cause ya can't stand me even lookin' at anybody 'cept you! " he explained, jabbing a finger in my direction. Truthful brutality.

He felt what he'd said was true, and looking back, I think it was. I think I coveted Nux's attention, probably because, well, after Crank left the Citadel and fake died, I hated everyone except Nux, because Nux wouldn't leave, except he did. We've already established why he ran away, or parts of why. My gut-rope squeezed anxiously around the crumbs of tack I'd eaten this morning.

Bloodbag stole glances at us both and fidgeted about, pulling on his dust-coated beard and rocking his good knee a bit. Just how the fuck was he our shot out? Maybe he was one of the fighters hired by the house, heh, if he was competing in the House Wars, it was a lost cause.

I could never afford the spectator fee to go witness him, but Lighty Boy dominated in the arena and I, kind of, delighted in hearing about the absolute madman with a shit leg who sometimes landed on Wilson's table while we were at work or sent waves of maimed opponents for the old man to fix. The bum leg made him relatable to me I guess... Wait.

Bloodbag was squirming and sidling as close as he could to the locked door of the barred cell, I watched him work purposefully to move without tweaking his screwed up knee.

"HE'S Lightly Boy?!" I squawked, "how the hell long has- when- he's been here since day one!'

Bloodbag's shoulders hunched as he cringed. Nux hunched up too, but he bared his teeth with aggravation.

"Yes," was all he spat.

My brain was still digesting that, but figuring out other strange happenings too, and they all circled back to the bloodbag. Whenever we went to do extra work in the shantytown, we'd split off, and Nux would always get at least twice the tips I did. I'd thought it was because he was quick and friendly too, no... I was then certain he was just visiting Bloodbag, and Bloodbag was helping him out by sharing his arena winnings, because they were mates, right? Shit, Nux had been carefully avoiding me and Bloodbag ever being in the same room, because he couldn't trust me not to kill him.

In the first nights we spent at Wilson's after I came around, I had never spoken of the Road War without placing the blame squarely where I thought it should go, the feral universal donor who had complicated everything and tipped things in Furiosa's favor. No wonder he kept me from ever seeing or knowing of the feral freaker being here. Bloodbag was probably careful not to visit Wilson unless we were away at our regular job. Maybe he came looking around the shanties for Nux when he never showed up to visit. This was all just paranoid speculation, but it made sense.

Another realization, the prize for the champion of the House Wars was a car. If Bloodbag won...

Boots incoming, men were moving through the cell block. It was a guard, I think, but he wore a mane of gull feathers stained ochre red and his face was etched in age, one eye clouded over. A bare chest and shiny chrome cone thingies with dangling baubles over his nipples. He also had on a kind of kilt made from strips of fine leathers. I spied what I thought was an embellishment of the leather at first, no, a tattoo. Human leather. Nice polished boots, which was a big tell about rank.

This wasn't a guard, it was Chuck, leader of the House we, Wilson, and Jaw worked for. He's the one Wilson called Caligula. He's the head of the House currently in dominance, which was also the House that trains and commands the city guards.

Jaw shuffled along into my line of sight now with a few lower-ranking guards. He looked pissed.

A snap of Caligula's fingers and the doors opened, two guards shouldered their way in through the narrow doorway and commanded Bloodbag out. He argued in clipped mutters.

"Wait, them?" he asked urgently, crazy eyes darting our way with an accompanying twitch of his hand toward us as the guards loomed.

He looked to Jaw, who avoided eye contact and simply shook his head.

The guards then started ushering him out, herding him along with their mass and cautious nudges. He jerked at every point of contact and tried to turn once toward Nux, but was shoved.

"Hey HEY!" there was a physical altercation happening just outside as he was removed. You could hardly understand his grunts and disjointed rambling, but he wasn't wanting to leave without Nux specifically.

Only Jaw and one lowly guard were left in the cell with Nux and I as the door was pulled shut with a clank. Nux flinched at the noise and gasped before choking on what I'd wager was the waterworks I had been expecting.

Jaw did not move. He stood there with crossed arms and eyes burning at the floor to the right of me under a harsh brow.

"I can't spring you out," he growled over the ruckus of the Feral losing it.

"But you're-" Nux started only to be cut off.

"I'm a washed-up fighter, I have nothing to offer anyone to get you two out," he huffed. The vein in his temple was bulging, and his left fist was clenched.

"So we're gonna rot in here, s'that it?" I snapped, still heated from what was said in this cell before they came for the only one in it of any value to the ruling clan.

I was lifted, slammed to the bars before I knew what had happened. Jaw had moved like lightning in his anger, took me by the collar and yanked me off my ass as if I weighed no more than a pup.

"NO. The punishment for illegal gambling is a MONTH as a slave fighter! No pay! no benefits! In the deathmatches, you get out IF you survive!" He roared, breath hot on my dazed face, "...and I'm powerless to save my sister's dip-shit boyfriend and his skinny friend from it!"

"Sister's boyfriend?" Nux croaked through a sob, confusion and terror bled into his strained voice, nevermind that. Jaw was probably going to murder me for the satisfaction of it.

I struggled to breathe, the wind knocked out of me and back aching, but also realizing the reality of it all. Nux, he was a dead man. There was no chance of his survival in the ring, fuck-off slim for me too. Desperate, and trying to bargain with nothing, I pled.

"W-wait! I- I'll do two months! I'll do his month too! Fuck, just not him, he can't!"

Jaw snarled, grinding his nose and forehead into mine.

"I don't get to make those decisions, Slit! I could forkin' throttle you!"

"Hold it," said the voice of total authority in the room, Chuck, "that's not a bad hook, I'm feeling romantic, let Blue Eyes out. Even if the lizard man carks it, a sacrifice for a good mate arouses the spectators' feel cavities, and it would soothe down our would-be champion. I see nothing but net."

I could barely understand the bizarre marriage of foreign vernacular and weirdly pretty words coming out of Caligula's mouth. All I heard was the man in charge order Nux's release. It happened weirdly, my head was spinning, everything seemed dreamlike. I was told I'd be sorted into the fighter barracks in the morning. Nux, he looked at me so strangely as Jaw helped him to his feet and out of the cell. His eyes were all cola, and he seemed to speak to me with quivering lips but my ears were ringing rusty.

All I could will myself to do was reach through the bars, grip Bloodbag's sleeve as he clutched my wrist back to pry me off.

I only hope the psychotic heard me tell him: "If you win the car, get him out. Just get him the hell out of here,"

 **A** **month and a half later,** **elsewhere.**

 **-** **Ripzag** **-**

"I said, don't touch me!" he growled as he lifted himself from the mattress on his palms and awkwardly twisted himself around to settle into the wheel chair.

He couldn't do it by himself without making his legs go off in sharp aches. They hadn't healed straight, and he went corpse pale every time he had to endure the torture of moving, but somehow he would rather be in pain than let me help him.

Stubborn green mud spawn.

He was rolling his way toward the front corner of the room to the wash bucket and rags. He meant to clean out the hell going on under the bandages of his legs.

We fought again the night before. He wasn't going to walk again on his own, that was fact. He thought he was special, thought he was above the natural order. Of course, ending his suffering and nourishing the clan with the vessel he'd leave behind was one of the considerations. I thought about it, because that was the way things are done, but neither of us wanted him to die, and I'd agreed to send the shaman away and keep Gunner fed and cared for myself... But he was still pissed, unsatisfied, because he thought I'd never consider honoring him by making sure his worthless body was taken in and absorbed by myself and the people. He thought I'd betrayed him merely by hearing the suggestion. Jackass. Every few nights we screamed about it, and how he wouldn't let me touch him, or even assist him if he insisted on continuing on in his suffering.

He'd turned away from Lord Crackle, scoffed at the blessings he's been bestowed and had clearly kept faith in the cruel seed goddess who'd forsaken him again and again. He deserved every bit of scorn the Electri-centric Lord would smite on him, and the ungrateful little dirt lover deserved my scorn too.

I needed to get out of here, away from all this pity and a corpse who had the audacity to keep eating and shitting. So, I got up and made my way for the door, kicking what was in my way aside out of well deserved contempt. Felt good, even if Gunner snarled as if I'd kicked him, not the wash bucket.

"You WEED!" He slung the overturned bucket out the door after me, and as I walked away, I heard the door slam closed.

I had a trade run to make today, I saw no harm in gathering the crew and leaving early. What difference would it make if we sat in the open for a few hours, none, because no one dared to tangle with His Acolytes anymore. We hide our movements in the storms no longer, because we don't have to. We've outgrown hiding, and I've outgrown- never mind.

Lightning Rider was repaired, mostly. She ran pure and clean and the hydraulics to lift her crackle antennae were back, but her steel skin would always bear the scars and the interior would always be stained in my Gunner's blood. I was glaring in at the black splotches on the passenger seat when my new bullet bud crept around the back bumper to address me. Timid thing, I couldn't stand him when he spoke, but he was good with a rifle, I guess.

"We're going? It's only noon," he said so quietly that I could hardly hear him, which was a great part of why I found him so irritating. Couldn't see him either under the hanging mess of hair drooping over his face or the turtle neck pulled up over his mouth.

"Shut it and tell the others, we're moving out in five," and that was all I bothered to say to him for that day. The less I had to hear him speak, the better.

Lightning rider, two cargo pickups and a pair of spotters were all we'd need today. It'd be short, all we'd have to do is head up to the mouth of the canyon into the Dead Barrens and wait. There, I cracked the door open and put my feet up in the window to enjoy the fleeting time I'd have away from the misery at home. The shipment wound up being late. I'd have to scorn them for it even if I was truly thankful.

What greeted us were the Gas Towners, a splintered group of their war forces who now operated privately for their own gain, refining crude into guzz out of reclaimed Scrotus Boy camps. Gas Town and where its profane roots groped was overflowing with crude oil, but well guarded. We Acolytes were not strong enough to do any more than trade in secret with them at this time.

Their rigs were adorned in blacks, bumpers polished. Fetching. Grafts was fetching too, where he wasn't a patchwork of botched skin repairs done by Gastown's meat mechanic, Abdominous. He had a fare face and eyes that always glittered pleasingly.

"Oi! you look awful, Ripper." He called as he stepped out of his rig while the lowers scrambled to trade empty and full transfer tanks.

"Eat me," I didn't bother to get up.

"In'at that s'posed to be the other way around?" He chuckled.

He had absolutely no fear reflex, but it was charming.

"Things've been dirt," I grunted, half hoping he'd ask why. I dunno, I liked his face all pursed up with sympathy.

"Oh, Gunner still stuck on the cot?"

"A wheel chair, pissy too, ungrateful,"

"Ah, but c'n ya blame him?"

Of course, sympathy always swung in Gunner's favor. I shrugged, disinterested in a chat now that my mood had dropped lower.

"...You should take a trip with me an' the boys down to Shatterbone. The House Wars look shine this year." he offered.

"Sorry, I honestly couldn't give a shit less." I told him... But he just can't shut it once he's going. Starting to hate his jabber at much as I did Turtleneck's.

"Aw, stop suckin' the joy out' the world. You gotta see this year's lineup in the flesh. Got a feral on the Red House front line this year. Gory, gory fun, beats the Citadel pits by miles. An' some chain fighter they' callin' The Lizard King. WOOF! Ugly bitch, that one. Hey, he's got double the ugly on 'is face you tha' do, missin' a leg too. Dunno how he ain't splattered yet..."

"Excuse me, what did you say?" I could not fucking believe it. Ol' Hoppy Lives.

Good thing I'm hungry.


	18. The Lizard King

Slave Death Matches are cheap entertainment. Almost dying never gets old if you're the one almost dying constantly, but apparently if you're the one observing it, you get jaded on watching people have their heads caved in.

I do not get the need for these theatrics in a bloodsport, period, but at least Chuck Sliver-Nipples Mc-gee and the leadership of the other houses keep it interesting. Last week the Red House and the Body Broker House fought their respective filthy cola-dropless degenerates, business as usual to entertain the masses before the main event, but they released starved mutts on us halfway through. It wasn't so much worse than Dune having a chomp, I might be keen to avoid dogs for the rest of my half-life, though.

In my next scheduled tango with death, there would be eight fighters. One of the four guys on our side gets to hang unto a handgun with no magazine. One guy on their side has the magazine but no handgun. Here's the fun part. The guy holding the pistol and the guy holding the magazine are getting painted bright red and bright yellow and then chained good and secure to a couple junker cars towed into the arena. Guess what was I was getting slathered all over me at two in the afternoon?

"That doesn't smell cola based,"

"S'not, s'red ochre an' cookin' fat," the red faced slave pusher replied, giving me a slap on the arm to lift 'em as he applied the color with a scratchy paint roller older than the both of us combined.

"Is that why all you guards smell rancid?"

"Sounds like ya said ya wanna add a week to your sentence,"

A growl climbed up my throat but not another word. I wasn't happy about being greasy and tethered to a dead car, but not chaffed enough to add an extra go in the arena to my personal shit-show. I wasn't even permitted to wear my leg in the barracks. The metal leg was contraband, things could be hidden in it that I could use to pick locks, in theory. It's rust, being forced to hobble around on your hands and one foot close to the floors and the filth there, or made to stand on one leg and wobble around without a wall to support yourself, but you get good at that with time. I still eyed the locker I knew my leg sat in, and I was furious to be denied that dignity but powerless to protest it.

"Ya picked who ya want keeping ya from gettin' axed?" He asked, sounding more bored than genuinely interested.

It was the rules. You get picked to be the prone bloke, you get to pick who keeps you sucking air.

"Yep, Skids, Tags, an' Chug."

"Chuck pulled Chug last minute, he's benched 'til next week, he's got House Wars to look forward to, remember?"

"...what?" Damn, I kind of forgot he got rotated onto the Red House team after one of their others carked it in the slums somehow. "Well, who the hell am I supposed to ask to fill the spot?"

"Figure it out, an' turn around."

Damn it. Sprockets, I guess, was an option, and I told the spineless sack of organ meat painting me just that. We weren't on speaking terms, Sprock and I, spitting terms was more like it. He was alright with Nux, but not so much with me. Whatever. He would have to do.

I had my chance to let him know what was up as soon as the paint job was done. I had an hour to wait after being herded back through the circular gate, which may once have been a far more fortified door but had been since replaced with welded rebar bars on heavy hinges.

Ugh, the so called "paint" was slick and disgusting, and my reek was cursed by everyone I passed in the painfully narrow walkways between racks of bodies lying in their cupboard sized bunks. Anyone standing pressed into the curved steel walls or racks to avoid me.

I found Sprockets enjoying what passed as privacy around here, one of the few surviving bunk curtains drawn around his thin square of space. I sat in the walkway and kicked at the supporting frame under his hard, flattened cushion.

"Who the frack!" He snarled, nearly tearing his poor excuse for privacy from the grommets holding it to the rod. "What the hell do you want, Glory Poacher?"

Sprockets used to be on Ace's crew, was a part of the crew Furiosa allowed to die by buzzards and a good sand-blasting via storm. He'd survived, and very clearly he still had some opinions about how Morsov went out. Glory poacher? Maybe, but the shit outright stole my kill in order to be witnessed. Still a shitty move. Fuck 'im. I owe no explanation for a damn thing, past or present. Sprockets looked like no War Boy, if it weren't for his brand or the, well, eight sprockets carved into his chest and belly, you'd never know. You'd merely think he was a hairy wretch just starting to feel death pulsing in his blood from the lumps growing on his neck and beginning to devour his right jaw.

"Chug's benched, I need another body and I wouldn't mind witnessing yours corpsed," I spat, knowing what I was more or less begging for and sitting tensed, ready.

He kicked and I pushed off with my good leg to slide a few feet to the left. Sprockets found the edge of the bunk support opposite of his rack with his heel and a uttered pained bark. I laughed. Can you believe this was an almost civil exchange? For our type anyway.

"Rack off! Pick somebody else!" Sprockets tried to dismiss me.

I had a reason to pick him beyond needing the spot filled and, begrudgingly, acknowledging that he was cunning in the ring.

"There's s'posed to be perks for winners on this one and I still owe, for Nux," I told him before he could try spitting on me to drive me off.

He paused, gears in his head turning for a bit before he spoke, "I get first pick of whatever shit they push at us?"

"Sure, greedy ass,"

"Shut your dried up face and get outta mine, I'm in, jus' fuck off. If I cark it I don't wanna spend my last lookin' at you."

And that was that. Chug was next, either he had no idea he was on the bench or he forgot too. Easy to do when you spend all your time thinking about how you might die any time.

Chugger was a Citadel boy, wretch born like me from what I knew, and we'd been raised with him, Nux and I, after Crank took us in. Chug had been Tank's apprentice, and Crank had been part of Tank and Notch's crew as a repair boy, so that made Chug and I pups of the same crew litter. He was older, miraculously still completely healthy despite being full of lumpy potential because of where he came from. If he hadn't been wretch born, the Imperators might've looked into grooming him as one of their own because he had decent mass, about six feet and four inches, broad shoulders, and had a habit of grinning like a madman in battle. Really unnerving when a round-shaped friendly looking face smiles at you but the eyes are full of murder. I knew better, it was just a farce, a gag which made the Roadkill and Buzzards shake ignorantly in their junk chariots. Chug is soft like wet sand, cares too much about his brothers and lets himself get walked on, or at least I'd always thought of him that way until I got soft and useless to boot.

He was sitting at the end of a rack because his bunk was on the floor and so was mine. Our cot mats were pulled out of their proper places because it was easier on me and Chug was too long to crush himself into his rack. The Bored had gripped him. He was just squatted there, chipping off paint from the wall with his thumb nail. I sat and watched the paint pull up over his nail and fall away for a moment. I didn't sit on my bunk though, not stinking and greasy like this.

"...Chuck benched you," I told him, still unsure if he knew about this or not, the way he looked as he leaned back and turned his head to face me told me he didn't.

His expression twisted in disgust, "If he expects me to be grateful for that then he can suck my cactus off. You still good for it?"

I shrugged, "I picked Sprockets for your spot."

Chug droned a low hum, the corner of his lips pulling with neither a grin or a scowl. He didn't reply as he shifted himself around and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his wide chest. He was better fed than I was upon arrival, so his overall condition was still alright. He'd been a true War Boy up until a month and a half ago. He was sold to Red House from thrallers only days after I was sentenced. First couple times in the arena, I was paired with Chug in two-on-two matches, because apparently Jaw had rigged it that way so that I might survive. It was one of the few favors Jawbreaker could swing from where he was on the ladder. I don't think Jaw realized what a decision he'd made or the deeper reasoning Chug had to keep an eye on me in the ring. Chugger was sentimental, which wasn't ideal for his own survival, but a boon for mine. Felt cheap and sleazy to know these truths and still be grateful for it. Chug seemed not to want to grieve twice, I think that was it. His eyes were wet when he first recognized me that month and a half ago, and he was just as weepy and disgusting at being told Nux was alive too.

I might never be able to repress that sight, an elder brother blubbering like that. The memory tumbled around in my skull as I now watched him grumbling this and that over getting barred from a fight we both knew would be a nightmare, and I guessed that he'd prefer to be having that nightmare himself rather than allow anyone he'd ever known to be subjected to it. There was nothing I could do to fix his mood, so, we sat in silence for the remainder of the hour.

"Headcase, Screamer, Yellow Guts, Lizard Face! Up front!" It was the guard calling us by insulting variations on the ring handles the spectators had assigned us.

I jerked toward the sound, looking toward the exit, but turned back to look back at Chug before I got up. His face pulled in uneasy contortions. I had to go, I didn't have time or patience to lie that I'd be fine when I didn't know that for sure. With his long reach it was easy for him to grasp my shoulder and force me back onto my ass.

"Don't get cocky, don't die unwitnessed," He said. It was as close as you could get to spoken sentimentality from a man who'd never known anything but the Citadel.

The proper response was to shrug him off, internalize whatever it was inside you that threatened to make that mean something. "Y'know damn well I'm too chrome to cark it,"

Close enough.

At the gate, there were four men. A typical pair of guards stationed at the gate, and two other Red-Faces. One Red-Face was armed with hunting rifle to prevent the escape of anyone stupid enough to try slithering out with us, the other had the job of searching us and confirming that everyone had on what they were allowed to have down in the death-pit.

I had to stand with hands up and allow my leg to be put on for me. They wont just hand it to me, because I could easily try to use it as a weapon. Fair enough, it was still degrading and they never managed to get it or the belt required to go on with it right. They always missed a belt loop or put the whole socket on just slightly turned cockeyed as they shoved it up onto my leg. I think they enjoyed watching me scramble to fix it the moment I got the chance.

We were cuffed and we walked down the halls following the lamp light of the guard ahead of us and with the cold barrel of the weapon in the hands of the one behind us driving us along. Skids and Tags walked between Sprockets at the head of the line and me limping up the rear. They were War Boys too, but from the Scrotus faction, not the Citadel. Of course I chose only other war boys, who else would I choose? It was, eh, hard to call Tags and Skids War Boys, though. They'd been among the youngest of pups when the Scrotus camps were cleared out, they'd done little more than survive with a few older brethren for years before thrall rustlers and the likes of Scrud got to them. Theses two hadn't worn war paint since before their voices cracked, they didn't even know the routines of sheering away unnecessary hair and they had few skin decals, but they were nasty as you'd expect Scrotus boys to be and had fewer qualms about Citadel boys than their elders of the same faction. They volunteered for their role in this. They wanted to die in the ring, please their surrogate flesh god, Chuck.

Out of the sub, into the light, and back into the darkness of the underground. The passages taken weren't the grid of main tunnels, they were narrower, crudely dug, sported support struts and beams made from all sorts of otherwise worthless but sturdy shit I failed to identify. These passages wound in curves and every time we took this walk, all I could imagine throughout was the mountain of dirt overhead caving on in stop of us.

An ass-breaking upward slope signaled that we were about to enter the ring, bypassing another passage where slave combatants from other houses were being held. Emergence blinds you with light, but not fire light. They burned through ungodly fart sparks to fuel panels of lights hanging overhead. The arena was underground, sort of. The place was a great pit dug into the seabed. Seating resembling stairs for a giant lined it, build from the dirt itself and covered over in an earthen cement. It was massive, two, maybe three hundred people could fit down here. The arena itself? I think they built it up out of the scavenged infernal bowels of Buzzard dens. Nothing but rust twelve feet high, and deadly sharp prongs studding it so thickly that you could reach your arm into it so deep that you gouge out your eyes on the rusty impalers before you found the true wall with your fingertips. Overhead, I imagine you'd see stars through a cage of cross woven rebar were it not for the lights scorching your eyes. Maybe you'd see a thousand wretch faces peeking in to catch glimpses of the battles for survival.

The stands were already filled with clamoring bodies thirsty for the carnage, and our opponents were already here and in place ahead of us. The armed guard behind us joined another holding a shotgun, both now stationed to keep an eye on for aggression toward their prone counterparts working to get us where we were meant to be.

As promised two totaled steel chariots sat each on opposing ends of the pit. I was un-cuffed from the chain gang and herded to mine. An iron collar and the clinking of heavy chain links was what greeted me. I could only move six feet in a semi-circle around the passenger side of the crumpled heap of scrap. I was tethered to the door frame, chain looped through the empty space where the windshield should be. I'd be sure to test the strength of the chain.

I was presented with an ammo box, it was shut and locked up with a padlock. I expected it to be dropped at my feet, but no, it too was to be chained, the length fed through the top handle and locked around my waist tightly after I was swatted with a baton to lift my arms. Fuck, that must have had the pistol in it. So it wasn't as straight forward as I had been led to believe. Why would we need the gun anyway? Why couldn't we just pound each other to death like the usual business? This was just like the time they sicked the dogs on us. It was a surprise twist we didn't want, we just didn't know the hook yet.

The guard left me to pull on my chain and tug at the heavy box awkwardly fastened to me. I looked up in time to see him hand a key to Sprockets and pointed across the arena to the man painted yellow. Yellow and Greasy as me, he was my opposing counterpart chained to a dead sedan with an identical box and chain biting at his skinny bones. Okay, so the other team got the key to our box, I gathered. Sprockets immediately gave Tags the key and must have told him to spot me, as he jogged over and took up a position on the roof of the dead car with the key tucked into his pocket.

Still no explanation on what the gun was for. Pretty foolish, arming combatants with a firearm in the first place. For instance, if I saw someone in the stands who I didn't particularly like... There must be a catch, I was sure of that.

The spectators were already tossing shit down into the margins of the ring, anything that could be used as a blunt or stabbing weapon. We couldn't touch them, not yet. Not until the Red-Guards retreated and the match officially began with the pop of starter pistol. I could see Sprockets inching closer to a work hammer chucked in far enough that he could dive for it straight off and have it before anyone else could pick up their own weapon.

From our left, the ring seemed to open, the walls pushed out with the help of of several men, and in came that catch I knew was coming. It was a cage, and inside was no prisoner. It was the very perks I'd been promised and had in turn promised Sprockets if he filled Chug's spot, clean clothing, pants and a shirt, and a huge bowl of- I wasn't really sure, it looked like produce but a lot more color rich than something like a potato or turnip. On top of the cage and hovering precariously close, a bucket hanging by the handle on the long arm of a bracket, and rigged around it was a pulley system strung up to the bottom of the bucket. A bag leaking sand into another bucket on the other end of the pulley wire. The second bucket had a target crudely painted on it. Okay, I get it. Blast a hole in the second bucket so it can't fill enough to get heavy and tip whatever was in the first bucket. No smell had wafted this way yet, but I was betting it was shit by the clouds of fly wings glittering in the harsh spark light. All of it was high enough to be out of our reach, so that had to be what the gun was for. The thorny wall was pulled closed as the helpers retreated behind it again, and a Red-Face sniper posted at the top of that same wall, I guess just to be sure we didn't tamper with the paltry prizes.

Muscle goes rigid and you forget to breathe as you wait for the pop of the start signal. One of the combatants was eyeing the same hammer Sprock would no doubt grab at the first opportunity. You shouldn't make eye contact here, but it's hard to avoid. There was a guy about my size with a gradient of pale and sun wrecked skin on his chest that seemed to indicate that he used to have a beard that hung down to his sternum, his eyes burned into me like icy needles. I knew he'd be headed this way straight off, and I searched the dirt around me for anything within reach that I might be able to fight him off with. My chain was too short. I had nothing, I looked back at Tags, about to order him to go and grab something from the edges of the ring to beat Beard-Tan with, but the start pistol cried with a bang and it was too late, the crowd's roars drowned out my command.

Beard-Tan was already on top of us before Tags could use his brain on his own and fetch a weapon. The reeking bastard was slashing away with a cooking blade that must have been flung into the ring near enough to him that he could grab it and be on me quick as a greased rat. He was frantic and without skill, but the ammo box hanging off my waist and nailing me in the crotch every time I moved made me clumsy, I couldn't parry him like I should.

If he managed to draw first blood, I didn't know it yet, I was too flooded with nitro to feel a damn thing but my own pulse in my ears and teeth.

Tags leapt from the roof of the wreck onto Beard-Tan's back, trying to put him in a choke hold I think, but being too lean, young, and too small to get a good grip. Beard spun and charged backward into the wreck in an attempt to get Tags off him. The boy was determined, he hung on, kept Beard-Tan distracted enough that I could try grappling with his hands to take the knife from him.

Wham.

The arena wobbled violently and I hit the grit and grime under us with knees and elbows in a daze. Something hit me from behind, hard, right across the back of the head.

I could still hear Tags screeching and howling curses, but I couldn't see him. I saw dirt, and I saw Sprock beating a bloody splatter onto the sand from the face of a combatant with that hammer.

I tried to rise to my hands and knee but failed, palm stumbling over whatever the hell had hit me. I discovered a boot, a spectator threw a boot at me?

I got stepped on under a grimy bare foot, flesh at my side squashed and my gnarled up back jerky stretching nasty. I rolled on reflex, looking up to see Beard-Tan trying to jab the knife over his shoulder at Tags, who was bleeding from somewhere over his scalp as he dug in and tried to tuck his head down against a shoulder. I think he bit him. A roar erupted and Beard was spinning against the dead car again, now looking like he was trying to scrape Tags off against the crumpled steel body.

My head throbbed, and I was pissed. With the ankle cuff of the boot in my right hand I rose, struggling with my shit-leg, and swung so hard my shoulder burned with the exertion. I probably just pulled something, but the splatter of red and the chunks of tooth leaving Beard's cola-hole as the heel of the boot flew across his mouth yanked laughter out of me.

He dropped the knife and the moment Beard collapsed, Tags dropped off him and scrambled after the blade, one hand trying to hold the gash over his skull closed. Tags didn't need the knife, not for Beard-Tan at least. I was kamicrazy, and this wretch wasn't leaving the arena alive.

The eyes roll back, veins in the face bulge, grains of filth between your staining fingers and their soft fragile skin gouge thin red scratches. I wish I could let it go on record that I knew what I did was cruel, that I felt remorse or pity. The truth is, I didn't even feel the least bit conflicted about what I did to people unlucky enough to wind up down in that blood pit with me.

This poor skid mark, I was going to beat his face with a shoe thrown into the arena until he wasn't recognizably human. I'd learned quickly that you should really spare your knuckles the abuse if you have to do this shit twice a week, a solid shoe heel is a blessing, and the spectators snarling "Lizard King!" knew it was one of my favorite killing utensils outside of anything that gave me a longer reach.

Thump! Thump! Thwack! Thwack! Squelch! Eventually the impacts go from a dull knocking against bone to wet crunches. The crowd eats it up, showers their favored fighters in great praise as the victim rattles a final wheeze.

It feels incredible, you feel high when they scream your ring handle, you ride that adrenaline all the way out of the red stained dirt of the arena, into the slave barracks. Lizard King, Lizard King, Lizard King. Their hollow love for you drives you on, temporarily absolves you of the violence.

I was coming up out of the frenzy, the blood made my hands slick, clumsy. Skid's was on his way to us, running, frantically screaming "KEY! KEY!" with the other lock box in his arms. He was somehow painted now too, in red like me from the arms up and yellow smeared around his jaw. My brain was still high on murder. Took too long to register that Skids was soaked in blood.

How did he get the lock box off the other guy? On a knee and scrabbling with the metal leg to let it bend under me, I scanned toward the other junker car. It was a massacre, a body hacked in two, entrails, a lake of red pooling under, and someone roaring over the corpse in horror. The heavy blade of a machete lay near the mourner's knee. He locked eyes on Skid's back as he and Tags fumbled with the box and the key.

I bellowed, "WHERE'S THE OTHER KEY?!"

The second key was thrown at me, no idea how he got it or who from, since I'd been too busy with Beard-Tan-No-Face to observe Skid's brawling. It hit me right in the teeth but I had no time to feel around to see if the chunk of metal chipped any of my ivory.

The box in Skids' hands popped open just as I was fumbling with my own sloppy wet fingers to get the key to my lockbox in the hole. The magazine fell from Tags' hands, eating up precious seconds as the two Scrotus pups dove to catch it like it was alive and trying to flee them. Sprockets was no use, he was busy getting strangled by the other surviving member of their team he failed to kill completely. He'd probably die later to infection.

My box sprung open, and out into my red slicked hands came the pistol. Tags just about hoped into my lap to whack that mag into place.

And then the heavy bush blade gripped in The Mourner's hands came down as Skids rose from his knees. It sounded like a flat palm on a hollow drum as the thick shaft of steel stuck halfway through a skull, and there was surprisingly little blood.

Skids dropped like a rag doll under The Mourner's legs as his charge lost momentum. The machete was stuck in Skid's head. His still warm corpse expelled a steamy puff of breath into the winter air while he was stepped on and his head was yanked around by his killer trying to remove his weapon from where it was firmly wedged into bone.

All of this happened in the matter of a second, maybe a second and a half, too short a time to have any response to it outside of pure deadly instinct.

Tags was screaming, lurched away from me with the knife stolen from Beard-Tan over his head in a doubled fist, hoping I'm sure to plunge it through The Mourner's blood pump.

Feeble skull meat of mine stalled out for a breath and I moved on reflex, lying on my back and aiming up as The Mourner shoved Tags away by the face easily without gaining much worse the pricked skin from the tip of the shiv. Tags was only a pup, after all. Kamicrazy, but a pup.

BANG!

And it was over. Another body dropped. Sprockets was blue in the lips and ears, but by the retching and gagging he was doing, I assumed he'd live. His assailant backed off as soon as the gun went off. It was trained on him now. I don't know how many rounds were loaded into the magazine, probably one, because that's all you'd need for the purpose they gave us on saving the spoils, which by the way were now fucked, soiled in human shit.

The signal to cease fire, or combat more accurately, sounded with a bellowing brass horn held to the lips of a Red-Face. I checked the chamber and mag, Yeah, one target, one bullet.

Fuck. No eating the colorful produce now. A damn waste, three out of our four survived, though, and I had two kills to Sprockets' possibly one. I'm still me, so of course I prided in my prowess. Of course a War Boy would.

I was rode the high of winning, trying not to look at the bodies and tuned out as much of Tags' bawling as I could as I stood. I held my arms up, showed them the goods, showed them the bloody shoe and the pistol, too.

Now this, I know I'll feel like shit about it later. I shouldn't be enjoying the sound of my ring handle being shouted from a hundred mouths and I shouldn't feel gratified and powerful, not like this when everything outside this moment has gone so wrong. All of that heavy reality B.S. is something for afterward.

We were ordered to drop our weapons at gunpoint, then I felt hands pull at my elbows. It was time to be cuffed and removed from the ring. This is the end of the show as far as I'll ever experience it. The walk is long though the tunnels toward the holding cells is short by distance but long by your estimate as the adrenaline eases off. The barred door into a six by six cage was opened, I stepped inside, the cuffs came off, so did my metal leg, and the door closed behind me as I wobbled and sat.

Most everyone else in the row of cages left and right of me were quiet as we who survived were put away until we could be sorted back to our barracks. Either the others were waiting for their matches or group brawls, or were on the other side of it like me.

This is the part where it stops feeling like a victory and more like you did nothing but survive. I ached all over, because I should. My left elbow might always be shot now, since it never really got to sit in a sling and heal after getting knocked undone. I felt old and scared. I've been alive for roughly eleven-thousand days, give or take a few hundred. I feel ancient, and for a half-life War Boy, I guess I'll actually be ancient soon enough, if I can survive the next two weeks.

In two weeks, I'll have been in this seabed hell-scape for three months. Three months is long enough in the Bullet Farm gulags to get irreversible rot in the lungs. I was certain, by the time I got to Bullet Farm, if I even made it there, Dune would be half-life too.

The holding cages is where the world crashes down on you, and everything seems less and less quiet the longer you sit there waiting to be escorted in a line back to your bunk. Every shivering breath roars like thunder.

A half hour or six hours, I never had any idea how long I'd wait. This time, like each time, the sting and throb of damaged skin began to break through the numbing adrenaline. This is nothing to War Boys, but the sharp burning across my left collar bone and sternum was starting to make me squirm. Kiss of cruel steel, a feeling I knew all too well. Red ran down in streaks and made the waistband of my slacks wet and cold. I guess I hadn't moved quickly enough out of the way of my opponent's wild slashing. I wasn't too worried. I've had worse.

"That needs closed up."

I looked up, finding the attending Red-Face looming just beyond the wire mesh of the cage. I glanced down to see how far the blood had absorbed into the worn clothing, but didn't bother any more than a blink or two when I looked back to his darkened silhouette against the burning bin of trash lighting the room.

"You want the ol' blue or not?"

So far, I'd had plenty of black and brown patches and my share of pain, but I hadn't been offered a trip to get patch-work. There was a taboo to it, for War Boys here to agree to seeing the meat menders, but no one else's former driver was living with the local organic mechanic. I didn't have to think twice about it.

"Yeah, alright," I agreed.

Once again, I had to stand and tolerate having my leg put on for me, and I had to fix it again as I stood on it. Then I was cuffed once again.

"Mediocre, Slit!" I heard Sprockets cackle with his raw throat. It was an echo of my own words for Morsov. The only reason I'd be out of my holding cell was to see a meat mechanic, and he knew he could fault me for it.

Why grace him with a comeback? I just scraped my metal knee across the bars and mesh wire of his cage obnoxiously. I'd learned from Dune that offering to real reply to an insult was the greatest fuck you which could be offered to our kind.

"Glory poacher!" He kicked the corner of his cage.

He couldn't touch me. Back home, they'd have scrubbed off the black he once wore on his forehead and marked him mediocre for getting strangled like he had in the pit that night. Weak. Amazing how fast I was losing my scav brain and regaining my War Boy nature. Terrifying.

Wilson's face was bluer than ever, so blue you almost couldn't read the initial panic in his eyes when I was pressed through the doorway with a palm at the back of the head like a criminal. He must have just been re-dyed. The color was bleeding into the yellowed shirt he wore, turning the collar green.

The old man had never feared the men painted red, he shoved a wad of newly cut bandages into the guard's hand and told him, "You put pressure on that."

I didn't care for the idea of the guard touching me any more than he had to while I was cuffed and if the look on his face was any indication, neither did he regardless of how well I was restrained.

I was targeted next, "Slit, stop wiggling. Turn around, lemme see what else you're hiding. You've lost weight, son."

That's probably true, but neither the slash across my collar bone or the scav padding I dropped were why I was here. I looked around over the Red-Guard's shoulder. I didn't see who I expected to be here making the louder scene.

"Where's Nux?" I asked.

Wilson's brows lifted and his mustache pulled itself wide as he cringed, "Oh, he probably won't be back for another hour, he went to see you fight, the poor kid always has it rough tryin'na beat the crowd to get out of the stands. Lighty takes him."

He's been watching me fight? I thought about that for a minute as Wilson had me seated and brought his tray of sharps. I thought about what Nux might be thinking as he watched me today, beating a man to death in the dirt for nothing but the entertainment of those who could afford to waste water on a lot better than bloody thrills. I wondered if he knew I held little against the slaughter, and I wondered what Dune would say if she knew as much. I could just as easily be slaughtered myself, which I decided was probably why Nux would waste someone else's cola to come see the blood-sport.

"He comes so he can witness," I stated just to confirm the thought in my own voice and nothing more.

"Mhm, he said somethin' or other 'bout that, Can't figure what he meant an' I'm afraid to ask," Wilson grunted and began cleaning the slash with what trickles of water he could get away with sparing in front of the Red-Face's keen eyes. It was probably best he never learned the meaning of Witnessing.

If I died, Nux wanted to be sure I was seen. I'd have to thank him for that, one day, when I would be able to swallow back the memory of feeling like rust for years about how I didn't witness him. He didn't die, no, but I should've been there any way in case he did, just as Nux was now doing.

What should I say? I couldn't know, I wasn't ready to say anything of it. Maybe it could be enough, for now, that Wilson would probably tell him I was here. My former driver could probably guess that I now knew he came to see the fights.

The stitches stung like hell, and I think it might be that it was hair. Felt different than the cat or rat gut Wilson usually used. It was still nothing, fuck I shouldn't be so accustomed to pain. I have no witty proverb for this, it's just concerning and a little depressing that a seven inch slice was merely a minor inconvenience to me now. I know the risks of infection but fuck it, a lot worse had failed to kill me lately.

It didn't take Wilson an hour to put those knotted stitches in me, though I know he tried to drag it out so that maybe Nux would get back in time. It wasn't happening, Red-face started to complain, Wilson shot back about his arthritis, and Red-Face reminded him that he'd seen the old man work faster under pressure and let a free hand slide down his hip to rest on the taped grip of a wooden cane he used as a baton. Smegma breath.

I had enough time to ask how Nux was doing. Wilson tried not to say it outright in front of the guard, but he seemed to imply that they were still getting my ration from Jaw, so he and Nux were putting weight back on slowly. It was a secret relief and a little less weight on my head.

It didn't take any longer than a halved second for Red-face to recognize when my treatment was complete, and he gave us no time for parting pleasantries. My sore ass was walked back to the barracks, bypassing the holding cages adjacent to the arena altogether.

I hate him, the red guard, and the cuffs around my wrists too. They felt heavy. I now understood why cuffs were featured in Dune's nightmares so often.

As always, my leg was confiscated before I was stuffed past the threshold and behind the barred gate. There's a kind of comfort at rock bottom. No real way things could get worse. Right? Except it varies day to damn day.

This is when you find out just how low rock bottom can get. You curl up in your bunk with the stench of viscera on you to shake and retch. You can't fall asleep for hours. Every time you close your eyes you see the ring, the salty brown grit under your feet which may have at one point been nearly white, and shadows circling, waiting to crush your head in with rocks or whatever was thrown into the arena. Sometimes you see other things, like your litter mates being torn to shreds by the hungry mutts. You fall asleep, finally. You're back in the arena again, it's empty and there are no spectators, but you can't find your way out, you're trapped.

The thing about doing war is, you go home after a raid, you lick your wounds, you're told there's glory in what you've done and that "daddy loves you", and even if it's all a lie it's enough that you can move on and distract yourself in the following lull. You're not locked in stifled rooms with nothing to look at but the latest empty bunks. The turnover rate there was much higher than any cancerous malady or spreading disease. Fit and healthy men die suddenly, brutally, and anyone could be next.

I got lucky, my dreams shifted somewhere I once foolishly thought had been rock bottom.

"Like something tha' seeks it's level, I wanna go to the devil. Ah! I wanna be evil, I wanna spit tacks. I wanna be evil and cheat at jacks. I wanna be wicked, I wanna tell lies! I wanna be mean and throw mud pies! Mhmm!"

She was singing, same as she does every morning while she wakes up to chore or sometimes just pass time lazily.

The dim fire light revealed her, back turned to me as she wrung newly clean bandages through her hands. Sometimes she grunted out the words to the song when her scarred right hand struggled to grip wet cloth and she had to summon extra effort.

"I wanna be evil, oof!... I wanna be... mad... But more than that, I wanna be bad! Bad! BAD!" Her singing paused as she shook out the rags and hung them on the drying line.

The stitched wound across my collar bone still stung, and I was certain the scavenger would be limping her way over to clean up the gash and put a protective layer of cloth between it and the world just as soon as she realized I was awake.

I didn't move, I just wanted to watch for a while. A lot of mornings she didn't wear much more than a pullover and wrap of cloth around her hips with faded green patterns in the yellowed fibers. The cloth may once have been white and blue.

Shine as the words in some of her songs were, I preferred her morning voice most when she was humming along with the tune instead. I was somewhat aware that this was a dream because the humming began on cue the moment I wished for it. Sometimes you get a little control over a dream. She turned and grinned huge with her hideous teeth the second I considered sitting up to get her attention.

"Ducky, you're up! You were starting to worry her, poor tired War Boy, must be hungry by now, yeah? No?" She turned away to fetch bowls and my hand chased after her as she moved out of my reach.

"C'mon Nutter, it can wait," I tried. I didn't care about food, I wanted to pull her into the nest of musty, mildewed bedding to sleep within sleep.

She shook her head as she turned back and took a seat, once again, just out of reach.

"We'll let that ugly bleeder air out a while more while we eat. Then a wash and new wrappings. Hmm? Then you'll get that Shine Hand ya want, needy man."

I'd roll my eyes if I weren't desperate for the dream to continue forever.

Voices that didn't belong kept interrupting it, pulling me out and forcing me to struggle back to where Dune and I left off. Crying, Tags was crying like the pup he was because someone was missing. Every time I came back, things would change, go slightly sideways and left.

She was dusted in the white of a War Boy, eye sockets scrubbed black with soot.

Another interruption, the sound of bunk springs squealing, and the place changed.

We were at the Citadel's Bloodshed. Nux lay napping behind me in an ill exhaustion.

"I'm starved, Duck," she said as she lifted her pullover from the bottom and revealed the familiar hole punched through her center, but instead of the smoldering embers I expected to see, fat maggots poured out of her into the bowl she held under the ragged wound.

I woke to find the survivors of tonight's matches, some struggling to staunch the flow of new wounds, filling up the space again. Skids was missing. Right. He got his head cracked in half.

I rolled back toward the wall. The bruises were setting in, and the twisting motion of turning to look back at the others had pulled the stitches just enough to send a nasty jolt up my neck.

I wanted to cover my head and vanish back into sleep but I knew I couldn't check out until everyone else quieted. There aren't even sheets or scraps of cloth to cover yourself in around here. Apparently some had used things of the like to string themselves up and end their suffering. The slave fighter barracks were well heated, but you feel exposed without something to cover yourself. Best I had to block out the sound and light were my arms, or at least the one which wasn't still kind of fucked up.

I felt the cot dip around considerable weight settling in the middle of the outer edge.

"Just me," It was Chug.

Chug was soft, damn soft, and always had been. He probably saw me curled up like a dead spider in my bunk and read too much into it. Funny how somebody going soft on you makes things go from whatever to rust. I held it in, a shake of the shoulder and a choke or two and I swallowed back the hell trying to slither out of me. I couldn't go spewing cola. Seemed like every time I give in to the waterworks, it just made the body pains worse, and I couldn't afford that now even if it weren't undignified and a display of weakness for a War Boy.

Soft as wet sand Chug, the fucker, but it was lulling as he squeezed himself further onto my bunk and lay himself on his side, back against mine. I felt almost safe between him and the wall, and it was enough to get back to where Dune left off filling bowls with breakfast.

 **-A week later-**

Finale of the House Wars. It meant two things for me: First, I didn't have to fight this week. Everything was booked up with non-violent talent in between fights and the only ones who had to go to the arena were those who had been hand picked for the teams. Second, If Lighty Boy wins I may not see Nux for a while. Or ever again.

Chug was slotted to fight on behalf of Red House along side Blood Bag, but eventually they'd have to fight each other if they both stuck it out until the end. Unfortunate, but at least these matches weren't generally to the death. Those hired fighters are too valuable, worth their weight ten times over in cola. Both Lighty Boy and Chug could lose, too. Then no one at the Citadel would ever know what truly went on down here. I'd certainly never heard of this place before Dune told me a little about it.

The guards by the door had a CB radio setup to listen to live updates of the tournament as they were broadcast out of the radio tower topside over the underground arena. The entire population of the slave barracks were crowded at the gate and barely breathed so that the radio could be heard.

Sonya the Meat Slicer is left dazed and heaving by Gribs Gritty's unholy gut buster kicks... It might do Sonya some favors if she coughs up brekkie now, Scabby, I've got it on good authority that Gribs is a sympathetic chunder cannon.

I faded in and out, mostly just listening for the names that mattered to me periodically as I kept myself busy. I had been awarded new pants after my last match, because the shirt and the pants were minimally shit all over, and because apparently Chuck was getting attached to my performance. Whatever, free digs. I had to beg a guard to both cut off the excess material on the left pant legand allow me to keep what was cut. No blades allowed in here, but I wanted to keep the severed pant leg. It was a sort of warm brown color but not by staining and weathering. Sprockets got the shirt, and Tags, well, he got to sleep between Chug and I now, since he looked pretty pathetic without Skids around.

...And Sonya rebounds with a devastating grapple. Gribs is in trouble!

I've never seen clothes like this, so fresh. I'd been keeping busy in the down time pulling threads from the scrap piece and twisting them together for a braided cord. I wasn't truly sure what I was doing this for, but these threads were of a fine quality. I just wanted to have busy hands. The Citadel was boring in peace times, but at least there there was always something you could do with your hands. I just needed to be occupied.

I was finishing a loop of braided cord with a knot when I heard that Chug was up against an opponent named Wheelie Bar. He wasn't from our barracks, but the name sounded vaguely familiar.

...It's brother against brother out here tonight, as Former V8 cultists circle...

Ah, guess Wheelie was a War Boy, then. Damn. Bad News for Chug. He was predictably rust deep down and he'd go easy on one of his own.

...The Smiley Bastard just keeps on eating knuckle sammich after another, if he can't get his head in the game, then this match may be the quickest yet.

Chug was going to lose, no question. Some of us hissed and spit and cursed him until the guards told everyone to shut up. The commentators were right. It was over quick. Loss by knockout within minutes.

My memory was jogged, Wheelie Bar was one of the boys on Tank and Notch's crew for a time, under a different name though. We called him Scraps, because he saved every chunk of worthless scrap metal to make trinkets from. He and Chug were good mates for a while, but Scraps took a position with a different crew in pursuit of advancing his rank, that was when he took the new name. Chug was pretty quiet about it all and didn't really bitch about it, but he didn't smile for a while after that. All of that was a long time ago. Apparently Chug was still not willing to knock Scraps' nugget off his shoulders over it.

The crowd at the gate dispersed back to the bunks. The fights would pause for a two hour thing where a story teller spoke a bunch of before-time nonsense and performers would act it out or something. Jaw explained it to me during one of the morning training sessions up top. I didn't really do any training much of the time, I and many others just sat there trying to recover from almost dying every time we were was in the arena.

The only reason I survived at all through the first two weeks of this shit was because of Chug, and I owed something for that. He'd saved my skin more than a few times, and not all of those times were here. I didn't wander back to the cots with the rest. I waited for him to be escorted back.

It would be a while, thirty or forty minutes before the procession of losers lumbered down the corridor into view. He was at the back, both shamed by the others for throwing a fight he could've won and needing to be guided by a Red-Face tugging him along at the elbow.

Ugh, he was smeared in his own red, eyes were both badly swollen and cheek fat on the left side, too. Damn, Wheelie got him good, didn't he?

I had to shuffle back against the wall on my palms and ass to give up enough room for him to get through. Chug was abandoned by the Red-Guard as soon as he was through the threshold and the gate locked.

"Chugger, over here," I called softly. I couldn't really lead him around, couldn't walk upright at the moment, but I could stick around with him while he navigated slowly toward the bunks and let him know if he was about to trip over anything. I usually gave him plenty of shit for being soft but I was no better. I said nothing of his bashed in face or the stench of defeat clinging to his skin nor the duty to beg forgiveness from V8 for his weakness. Though it was waning fast, there was still too much Scav in me to bother with the rituals of humiliation.

Chug found the thin mat on the floor which served as his spot and lowered himself onto it with care not to rattle himself. He said nothing, just licked idly through a wince at his busted lip as he lay on his side and half curled over on himself. Not much more could be done for the shame of that loss. Wasn't right to encourage mediocrity by telling him it was okay to lose to Wheelie, because it wasn't and he could've pounded him into pulp instead of pissing away his only path out of this shit-pit, but it didn't feel right to point that out either. I just sat on the floor near his head and waited for the guards to call in that the fights had resumed. I kept plucking threads from the scrap of cloth in my lap and lost myself to my thoughts for a time.

"Jus' wanna go home," he muttered through a wet slur. He was drooling, probably couldn't feel much of his face now that the swelling was peaking out.

It put a chill up my spine. Chug was the older war brother, the one Notch always had keeping us in line and the one trying to keep the us out of an early grave. He sounded like a pup, now. I threw the length of pant leg at my bunk, giving up on it and whatever I was going to try crafting out of it. I was too nauseated to do anything, not by Chug, by the fact that he sounded just as trapped as I felt.

I wondered about home while a knot tied itself in my guts. Lighty Boy will win, I thought to myself. You have to have faith in something, right? If that flea-bag could escape my wrath and have a hand in killing off three warlords, then it should be a sure thing, but what kind of home would the blood factory be bringing Nux to? I had to know.

"What's home like now?" I asked as quietly as I could. The nausea and racing blood pump only elevated to new heights as he made me wait for an answer.

His shoulders hunched in a shrug and he rolled into his back, turning his face away to hock up a bloody mouthful and eject it away.

"Boring, no raids, no war, nothin' 'cept cocky fuck-wits thinkin' is'sa good idea to try their luck on us," he started. I think he meant to say more, but his misshapen face twisted a bit. Pain.

"More boring than before, huh?"

He nodded and shivered, but not with cold.

"Got empty bunks, lot of unwitnessed," he said flatly, it wasn't new to him, this had been his reality for three years, but the last of the statement would be spat with contempt, "it was nothing but rust for a while."

My guts felt like acid at that, I figured the death toll after the rock slide at The Canyon would be bad, but it didn't sound like he meant that as the culprit for vacant beds. I trusted what he'd claimed before, it was the only path I saw toward any reassurance that Nux might have a few more years on his half-life if he left with Bloodbag and ideally went back to The Citadel.

"But you still want to go home, right?" I probed.

He shrugged again. "S'home. Shit's different but, there's still crew."

Crew, Nux and I left it shortly after Crank was gone. Things got too chaotic, and we were young and thought we knew everything. The minute Nux had a car of his own together and running, we started taking jobs with other crews and just bouncing from station to station, chasing glory. The fact was, after Crank left, Notch and Tank fought relentlessly. I think I better understand why now, because clearly they knew the truth about why he left and the two disagreed with the decision Tank made about it, and the lies they fed us about it. The brother who took us in was dead as far as we knew, a deserter, and we didn't care to listen to crew leads who were too busy being at each other's throats to lead. We still worked with them from time to time, but there was a buffering space between us and them.

"How's everyone?" It felt stilted to ask something like that so casually. I didn't really have a right to know anymore.

Chug's face twitched as if he might've lifted his brows if it wasn't excruciating, hissed a past wince, and waved a hand once before dropping it.

"Still like throwing a lit stick of dynamite at a cactus patch. Shock an' Nugget, still a pain. Fork, still a smart-ass. Big Boy, still big. Backpack, still hates bath day. Cecil, eh, he's the way he was last you saw him. Ike was still holdin' on when- you know, last I saw."

"And Notch?"

"Still old as dirt," he admitted only because Notch couldn't hear that jab all the way from the Citadel.

I snorted though a grin. It wasn't that funny, but a little is a lot when you've got no reason to laugh. It was weak, but Chug cringed out a chuckle too.

A thought crossed my mind, one that probably should have occurred to me weeks ago, because Chug would know how to answer this. The math added up. If Crank made it to the Citadel, Chug would know about it. He didn't get himself sold here until two days after I got sentenced.

"Chug, is Cr-" I started, but paused when I second guessed bringing it up. If Crank and the bog folk never made it then what good would it do to kick Chug with the truth about Crank while he's already on the floor?

"Hm?" He grunted, right corner of his lip sagging toward half a grimace.

I sighed, if Crank was at the Citadel, then all I'd have to do to get answers or at least acknowledgment was say his name, if Chugger didn't know what I was talking about, then I'd just have to make up some other wretch-shit reason to bring the deserter up.

"Crank," I said, holding back as much urgency as I could.

Chug winced again, but this time I could tell it wasn't his face he was sore about.

"Well, Notch hasn't killed him yet, so..." he trailed off in grumbles.

All I could do was let go of a held breath and lie down on the floor. My skull meat was tired. I heard another sloppy splatter of bloody mess leave Chug's face.

"You should go ask for the old blue man,"

"You ask, I'm fine," He asserted.

"You're feckin' hard to look at," I jabbed.

"So're you, Shit-head,"

There was a rumble and a deep roar from out past the shack town and somewhere in the lots.

"What was that?" A man behind me worried.

"Is a storm coming? Sounds like thunder." Another proposed, wrongly.

"That's not a storm!" I heard Sprockets crying out from the next aisle of bunks. He'd certainly know the difference, wouldn't he?

Chug sat forward and lurched onto his feet blindly, holding onto the rack of bunks for support. His left hand gripped my right shoulder as I rose on one leg.

The only men here who would mistake that for an incoming sandstorm were those pitiful bastards who'd never seen war. Anyone here with a brand on his back or who had belonged to one of the northern factions would recognize the sound. It was thunder alright, but not from a storm.

"Sounds like raiders," Chug growled.

I looked down the hall past all the bodies leaving their bunks. All who had ever been a War Boy or Road Skirmisher were fairly vibrating. It's basic reflex, ingrained deep as bones. We were ready for war but barred from carrying it out.

I dropped to my palms and began moving like an animate tripod for the gate. Chug clumsily pressed at the back of the body clogged aisle to follow, effectively initiating a mass migration and a crushing squeeze of bodies at the circular exit. I was almost squashed flat against a wall and threw an elbow back at whoever was digging into my ribs with a knee.

Voices pounded the steel walls and bounced back to pummel ears. The Red-Faces snarled for quiet as they hunched closer to the speaker box of their CB. It took threats to shut us up enough that anyone could hear.

There was static, the sound of men speaking to each other in The background. All I caught was

...Motherfucker Unlimited is back, brought reinforcements, all enforcers are to abandon duties and muster at the stations A and D. All tuned in are to spread the order down the chain.

Our ever present gate guardians were gone in a flash, sprinting down the narrow hallway. They left the radio tantalizingly just out of reach of the man now stretching his arm through the bars to claw at the knotted up cord connecting the mouth piece.

The mass of bodies shifted, I couldn't see anything, I had an eyeful of someone's ass. There was a clamor of excited expletives blended with praise. I heard Chug's name. Someone must have pulled him to the front for his long reach.

The buzz of shouts and hoots rose to fever pitch and then quickly fell back to dead silence as we all listened. Everyone, including myself packed in, leaning closer as the antenna was jiggled around. Just static for a while, then some guard chatter, but quite a bit of background noise too. The frequency was toyed with, and we heard a voice cut through even from some distance away from whatever mic was picking it up.

...We've made our intentions and deman-... No one wants this war-...

Ack! Damn shitty signal in this giant tin can.

...all suitable vehicles in the lots are to be commandeered...

Red-Faces organizing a defensive.

...We came once in peace, flew streamers of white-...

There was that voice again, it was a strain to understand it through layers of chatter and the sound of engines revving somewhere within it all.

...stained in blood and wasted guzzoline!...

...They're breaking formation and moving in a line on the isthmus...

….You have fifteen minutes to comply!...

My body felt unreal, like I was turning into a fluid or a gas and could flow around loosely, detached from a solid form. I also felt a lot like I might be about to shit myself. I called for Chug, pushed at the sweat stinking bodies in my way to get through and grab his arm.

"Am I hearing shit? Am I fuckin, cracked? It can't be-" He cut me off.

"It is," he confirmed, and I felt a shiver run though him, not fear though, excitement, maybe even hope. "That's Big Boy."


End file.
